LIFE  IN  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


A  LITTLE   HISTORY 
OF*  COLONIAL 


GEORGE  CARYEGGLESTON 


GIFT  OF 
.    A.    Will  lama 


EDUCATION  DEFT. 


LIFE    IN    THE    EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY 


mttlt 


of  Colonial  3tife 


LIFE  IN  THE    ;'; 

tdGHTEENTH  (CENTURY 


By 

GEORGE   GARY  EGGLESTON 

Author  of 

"OUR  FIRST  CENTURY" 
"A  CAPTAIN  IN  THE  RANKS" 
"RUNNING  THE  RIVER,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

.  Parneg  Company 

1910 


Copyright  1905      II 
BY  A.  S.  BARNES  &  COMPANY 
All  Rights  Reserved 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  social  and  political   institutions  of  every 
country  are  the  outgrowths  of  that  country's 
life  conditions,  except  in  so  far  as  institutions 
may  be   imposed   upon   a  people  by   an   authority 
outside  of  themselves. 

In  our  countrv  outside  authority  has  never  been 
able  thus  to  impress  itself  upon  the  minds  and  lives 
of  the  people.  The  development  of  American  in 
stitutions,  American  ideas,  and  American  life,  has 
been  exclusively  from  within.  Our  system,  from 
top  to  bottom,  is  the  creation  of  the  people  who 
live  under  it.  It  is  therefore  peculiarly  well 
adapted  to  their  needs,  and  peculiarly  an  expression 
of  their  common  thought  and  aspiration. 

The  men  and  women  who  founded  the  English 
colonies  in  America,  and  the  men  and  women  who 
built  those  colonies  up  into  great,  self-governing 
commonwealths,  were  from  the  beginning  men  and 
women  in  revolt  against  the  life  conditions  into 
which  they  were  born.  They  were  inspired  by  a 

v 

700940 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

determined  purpose  to  better  those  life  conditions, 
to  organize  society  and  the  state  in  accordance  with 
their  own  needs  and  in  answer  to  their  own  aspira 
tions  of  liberty  and  self  government. 

In  this  volume  and  in  the  one  preceding  it,  "  Our 
First  Century,"  an  effort  has  been  made  to  show 
how  the  colonists  and  the  earlier  native  Americans 
did  this  work  of  social  and  political  construction. 
It  is  a  story  which  every  American  must  know 
thoroughly  if  he  would  understand  the  institutions, 
the  ideas,  and  the  natural  impulses  of  the  Great 
Republic  as  they  now  are. 

Surely  there  could  be  no  more  enlightening  story 
than  that  of  our  country's  beginnings  and  early  de 
velopment  ;  for  out  of  those  beginnings  and  through 
that  development  there  has  come  into  being  the 
greatest,  richest,  freest  and  most  potent  nation  that 
has  at  any  time  existed  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  It 
is  at  the  same  time  the  happiest,  best  fed,  and  most 
prosperous  of  nations.  It  is  the  only  civilized  land 
in  which  every  man  has  an  equal  share  with  every 
other  man  in  the  government,  the  only  land .  in 
which  the  conditions  of  life  are  such  that  the  poor 
est  laborer  may  have  meat  on  his  table  every  day  in 
the  year,  while  his  children,  with  education  free,  and 
with  no  barriers  of  caste  to  fix  their  status  or  to  say 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

nay  to  their  ambitions,  may  freely  and  hopefully 
aspire  to  the  very  highest  achievement. 

It  has  been  the  author's  endeavor  to  tell  the 
story  of  all  this  briefly,  and  with  only  so  much  of 
detail  as  is  necessary  to  a  just  understanding  of 
events,  while  showing  forth  what  manner  of  men 
and  women  the  builders  of  the  nation  were,  what 
conditions  surrounded  them,  how  they  lived,  what 
clothes  they  wore,  what  sort  of  habitations  they 
built,  how  they  cooked  and  ate,  what  schools  they 
had,  and  everything  else  that  constituted  their  en 
vironment,  including  their  ignorance  of  sanitation, 
their  lack  of  pavements,  sewers  and  water  supply  in 
towns,  the  imperfection  of  their  means  of  intercom 
munication,  their  consequent  isolation  and  the  like. 
Attention  has  been  given  to  their  sports,  their  pun 
ishments,  their  methods  of  farming  and  fighting, 
their  commerce,  their  manufactures,  their  fisheries. 
Their  deprivation  of  many  things  that  in  our  time  are 
accounted  common  necessaries  of  life,  is  contrasted 
with  their  indulgence  in  luxuries  of  dress  and  living 
which  we  should  now  regard  as  foolish  extravagance 
and  ostentation. 

In  the  preceding  volume — "Our  First  Century" 
— the  period  of  Colony  planting  is  dealt  with.  In 
the  present  volume  the  steady  and  resistless  advance 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

of  the  colonies  toward  National  Independence  is 
traced,  as  the  most  vital  fact  of  American  life  during 
the  first  three  quarters  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  one  which  dominated  and  colored  all  other  con 
ditions  of  the  life  of  that  time. 

In  this  volume,  as  in  the  previous  one,  the  author 
and  publishers  have  availed  themselves  of  the  aid 
of  many  illustrations  which  show  forth  the  condi 
tions  of  life  in  aid  of  the  written  text. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER.  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION v 

I.    WHEN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  DAWNED  I 

II.    FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY          .                .  22 

III.    THE  GEORGIA    COLONY          .             .             .              •  32 

IV.    LIFE  IN   GEORGIA    AND  THE  CAROLINAS    .  39 

V.    FURTHER    WARS   OF  THE    COLONIES       .             •  52 

VI.    THE     FIRST    INDEPENDENT    COLONIAL    WAR  6 1 

VII.    THE    PROBLEM     OF      THE     COLONIES BRAD- 

DOCK'S    BLUNDER       .             .             .             .  73 
VIII.     COLONIAL  INDIVIDUALITY               .             .             .84 
IX.    THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  FRENCH    POWER 

IN  AMERICA       .....  92 

X.    SOME  COLONIAL  GRIEVANCES        .             .             .  IO/ 
XI.    THE     ATTEMPT      TO     ENFORCE      OBNOXIOUS 

LAWS  J    JAMES    OTIS'S    INSPIRING  MAXIM  I  I  3 

XII.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  REVOLT                .              .  125 

XIII.  COLONIAL   WEALTH  AND  LUXURY          .  -134 

XIV.  THE   EVENT  OF  PATRICK  HENRY        .             .  145 
XV.    THE  ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS            .  156 

XVI.    DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION      .             .  I /I 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER.  PAGE 

XVII.    BEYOND  THE  MOUNTAINS  .  .183 

XVIII.    THE  APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION         .  194 

XIX.    HEALTH    CONDITIONS    AND     PECULIARITIES 

OF    LIFE  IN  THE  COLONIES       .  .  .    2OQ 

XX.    THE  PROSPERITY  OF  THE    COLONIES          .  2l8 

XXI.    EDUCATION     IN    THE  COLONIES PECULIAR 

CUSTOMS         ......    224 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Colonial    Mansion,    residence    of   the   late    William    Bull    Pringle, 

Charleston,  S.  C Frontispiece 

New  York  in  1697  (City  Hall  and  Great  Dock)  ....  2 

New  York  City  Hall,  Wall  Street.     Corner  stone  laid  in  1699         .  4 

An  Old  Maryland  manor  house    .......  7 

Sawing  boards           ..........  9 

Hand  mill            ...              12 

Map  of  the  "  De  Peyster  Garden  "  in  W7all  Street,  New  York  1718  13 
Old  Iron  Furnace  near  Warwick,  N.  Y.            .         .         .          .          .16 

Spinning  flax 18 

Spinning  wool             ..........  20 

Map  illustrating  the  French  and  Indian  Wars       ....  23 

Queen  Anne     ...........  25 

Acadia,  Port  Royal  and  Louisbourg  and  the  route  by  sea  between 

Boston  and  Quebec           ...           .....  26 

Old  Swedish  Church,  Wilmington,  Del.            .....  27 

An  early  printing  press           .          .         .         .         .          .         .         .  29 

General  James  Oglethorpe         ........  33 

Georgia  and  Florida  as  they  were  in  Oglethorpe's  time        .         .  35 
A  plantation  gateway,   entrance  to  the   estate  of   William  Byrd  at 

Westover,  Va.      ..........  41 

Carved  doorway,  Bull  Pringle  mansion,  Charleston,  S.  C.    .         .  43 

Indian  moccasins    ..........  48 

Gateway  at  St.  Augustine,  Fla 53 

A  French  regular 55 

Old  house  at  Deerfield 56 

A  French  officer        .         .         . 58 

A  Canadian    soldier     ....          .          ....  62 

Blockhouse 63 

George  Washington 65 

xi 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  flintlock 68 

Fort   Duquesne     .  69 

Indian  fur  trader .         *         .         .     74 

Line  of  Braddock's  march 77 

The  situation  of  Crown  Point 81 

The  Postal  service  in  1700 85 

Travelling  on  horseback  ....*...     86 

In  a  Virginia  home 89 

General  Mont  calm  .........     93 

Lord  Loudoun      ........          .         .         94 

William  Pitt -95 

Uniform  of  43rd  Regiment  of  Foot,  raised  in  America  (1704)      .         96 
A  Virginia  mansion,  Westover  ......   100 

Negro  quarters     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .101 

Lord  Howe IO2 

Ruins  of  Fort  Ticonderoga .103 

General  Amherst  .         .         .         .         .         .          .         .         .104 

General  Wolfe       .         . jot; 

Old  view  of  Quebec         .........  106 

Old  Dutch  house        ...  .....  108 

Notice  of  runaway  slave,  "  Charleston  Gazette,"  1754  .  .   109 

Illustrated  advertisement  from  the  "Charleston  Gazette,"  1744  .        no 

New  York  Colonial  currency .114 

James  Otis  .         .         . .116 

Massachusetts  three-penny  bill 118 

North  Carolina  paper  money     .  .         .          .          .          .          .121 

A  Virginia  shilling  .          .         .          .         .          .         .         .         .126 

Virginia  shilling   (reverse)  .         .         .         .          .          .          .127 

Rosa  Americana  penny  .         .          .         .         .         .          .         .129 

Rosa  Americana  penny  (reverse)          .         .          .         .         .          .130 

Nelson  mansion       .  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  135 

Interior  of  Rosewell  manor 137 

Water  mill .         .139 

Costume  of  Thomas  Hancock.     Black  velvet    coat,   waistcoat   and 

breeches  (about  1755) 140 

Costume  of  Thomas  Boylston.     \Vhite  satin  waistcoat,   gold   trim 
ming  (about  1720) 141 

From  portrait  or  Mrs.  Simon  Stoddard  (about  1725)  .          .       142 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

PAGE 

Quaker  bonnet 143 

Colonial  tea  set   of  gold,    belonging  to    the    Draytons   of   Drayton 

Hall,  S.   C 144 

Rolling  tobacco  on  the  wharves 147 

Patrick   Henry 148 

Advertisement  from    the  "  New    York  Weekly    Gazette  and    Post- 
Boy"  (1765)      149 

Costume  of  Peter    Faneuil.     Velvet    coat,  cloth   wTaistcoat,    velvet 
ruffles  (about  1740)  .          .          .         .         .         .         .         .   151 

Windsor  chair.      Facsimile  of  a  cut  in  the  "  New  York  Weekly  Ga 
zette  and  Post-Boy"  1765         .         .         .          .         .         .          .152 

From  portrait  of  Mrs.  Anna  Gee  (about  1745)          ....   153 

Samuel  Adams      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .154 

An  old  New  York  mansion.    Van  Rensselaer  manor  house  at  Green- 
bush,  N.  Y.  158 

Colonial  fragments:  Door  trim   from  55  Broadway,  N.  Y. ;  George 
Washington's  chair;  clock  at  57  Broadway        ....       164 

A  spinning  bee         ..........    172 

A  Colonial  tea  party     ........          .174 

A  hatter's  shop  in  old  times  .         .         .         .         .         .         .176 

A  Conestoga  wagon  in  the  Bull's  Head  Yard,  Philadelphia  .       184 

A  pack  horse  185 

A  wooden  tray 186 

Skillets  187 

Daniel  Boone .         .         .189 

Old  windmill 190 

A  needlework  sampler  . .191 

From  portrait  of  Mrs.  Mary  Simibert  (about  1735)  .         .         .192 

Philipse  Manor,  Yonkers,  N.  Y. ;  as  it  formerly  appeared.  .       195 

The    Peabody    mansion,   Danvers,     Mass.      Built    about   1745    by 

"King"  Hooper  of  Marblehead 197 

From  portrait  of  Mrs.  Thomas  Boylston  (about  1765)  .         .       198 

Black  silk  bonnet  .         •         .         .         .         .         .         .         .199 

Musk-melon  bonnet 200 

Pewter  chafing  dish 202 

The   Royal    Exchange   for   merchants.     Built    in  1752   on    Broad 

Street,  N.  Y.,  nearly  on  the  line  of  Water  Street        .         .         .       204 
Costume  from  an  old  portrait  .......  206 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  Colonial  kitchen  .  .  . 214 

Kitchen  fireplace  .         .         .         .          .          .         .         .          .215 

Old  whale  ships     .          ...          ......       222 

King's  College  (now  Columbia),  Barclay  Street  and  College  Place, 

N.  Y. ;  corner  stone  laid  in  1756  ......  225 

A  form  of  stocks         .........        226 

Ducking  stool  ..........  227 

A  scold,  gagged 228 

In  a  New  England  meetinghouse  .....          .  235 

Present  territory  of  the  United  States,  showing  by  whom  it  was 

claimed  before  1763         ........       239 

The  Beekman  coach  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .241 

The  author  and publishers  wish  to  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  the  Cen- 
tuiv  Companv  and  the  American  Book  Company  in  granting  permission 
to  tisc  several  illustrations  which  appear  in  this  book. 


LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY 


CHAPTER  I 

WHEN     THE     EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY    DAWNED 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
colonists,  north  and  south,  had  learned  in  a 
considerable  degree  how  to  live  in  America. 
They  had  learned  in  each  colony  something  of  what 
crops  the  soil  and  the  climate  favored.  They  had 
learned  in  each  of  the  colonies  how  to  care  for  their 
domestic  animals  and  fowls.  In  brief,  they  had 
learned  fairly  well  how  to  live  in  their  new  homes, 
and  how  to  produce  there  all  that  they  needed  for 
sustenance,  together  with  a  considerable  surplus  for 
export. 

They  were  no  longer  dependent  upon  the  mother 

country  for   food,  and   if  they  were   still  dependent 

upon  it  for  manufactured   articles,  at  any  rate   their 

surplus  food  products,  ship  stores,  fish,  and  the  like, 

A  1 


2      LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

were  amply  sufficient:  to  buy  all  that  they  needed  of 
manufactures. 

AFhe"  colonists  wei*e  to  ia  great  degree  dependent 
upon  the  mother  country — which  they  were  by 
that  time  strongly  disposed  to  regard  as  a  step 
mother  country — for  all  sorts  of  supplies  that  were 


New  York  in  1697.     (City  Hall  and  Great  Dock.) 

the  products  of  factories.  Yet  many  of  the  colo 
nists,  both  north  and  south,  were  rich  enough  to 
have  all  these  things  in  plenty  in  their  houses — 
brasses,  rugs,  mahogany  furniture,  leather,  carpets, 
mirrors,  chests  of  drawers,  rich  tapestries,  porcelain, 
pewter  utensils,  tables  of  rosewood,  tablecloths — 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY        3 

which  they  called  carpets — and  napkins  of  fine  linen, 
clocks  of  artistic  manufacture,  combs  of  ivory, 
brushes  of  great  value,  and  a  multitude  of  other 
articles  of  luxurious  use.  In  the  "  plantation  book" 
of  one  old  Virginia  family  I  once  found  this  entry 
under  date  of  1701  :  "  Bought  sixteen  towels  for  the 
bath,  rough  in  texture,  but  excellent  in  absorbing 
capacity,  for  four  shillings  apiece."  The  shilling  in 
Virginia  was  i6f  cents,  but  it  represented  a  value 
greater  than  twenty-five  cents  does  in  our  time,  so 
that  these  sixteen  ordinary  bath  towels  cost  my  lady 
the  equivalent  of  sixteen  dollars  or  more  of  our 
money. 

In  another  plantation  book  there  is  this  entry 
under  date  of  1720:  "Sarah  Jane  returnd  from 
Madera  by  way  of  Engd.  Wheat  sold  at  good 
advtg.  Brought  me  six  casks  Madera,  one  port 
and  two  Bordeau.  Allso  2  pretty  China  tea  setts 
and  traits  [trays],  cost  12  pounds  3®  6d." 

It  was  the  custom  even  that  early  for  a  number 
of  planters  to  club  together,  freight  a  little  ship  with 
wheat,  send  it  to  Madeira,  and  thence  to  England 
and  home  again  with  wines  and  other  luxuries  for 
home  use.  The  "  Sarah  Jane,"  was  doubtless  a 
New  England  ship  chartered  for  an  expedition  of 
this  kind, 


4     LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

All  these  things  meant  luxury,  and  the-better-to- 
do  colonists  certainly  lived  in  luxury  when  the  seven 
teenth  century  ended  and  the  eighteenth  century 
began. 

The  conditions  in  New  England  were  not  widely 
different  from  those  at  the  south,  except  as  the  cir- 


New  York  City  Hall,  Wall  Street.     Corner  stone  laid  in  1699. 

cumstances,  the  climate  and  the  temperament  of  the 
people  made  them  so.  A  good  many  well-to-do 
men,  and  some  wealthy  men,  had  come  into  the 
New  England  colonies,  and  they  built  fine  houses 
and  fared  sumptuously.  So,  too,  in  Maryland,  and 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY        5 

still  more  in  the  Carolinas,  there  had  been  a  con 
siderable  immigration  of  wealthy  gentry,  who  had 
established  fine  plantation  "  seats,"  there  where  they 
intended  that  their  children  after  them  should  live 
in  state.  The  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania  made  less 
display,  but  they  were  thrifty  folk  who  prospered 
mightily  in  the  new  land,  and  they  were  minded  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  labor  in  their  own  fashion. 
Their  clothing  was  of  Quaker  cut,  but  the  cloths 
and  silks  of  which  it  was  made  were  of  the  best. 
Their  houses  were  plain  in  structure  but  the  life 
within  them  suffered  no  lack  of  any  luxury  that 
abundant  money  could  buy. 

In  order  to  understand  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
colonists  at  the  beginning  of  this  new  century  it  is 
necessary  to  bear  always  in  mind  the  fact  that  from 
the  beginning,  or  almost  from  the  beginning,  all  the 
acts  of  these  people  had  been  dominated  by  a  spirit 
of  discontent  with  things  as  they  were,  and  by  a 
fixed  purpose  to  make  them  better.  All  these  peo 
ple — whether  Puritans  in  New  England  or  Cava 
liers  in  Virginia,  or  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania,  or 
Catholics  in  Maryland,  or  Huguenots  in  the  Caro 
linas,  or  Germans  in  Pennsylvania — had  crossed  the 
ocean  in  protest  against  conditions  in  their  home 
lands.  They  had  all  come  to  this  country  in  search 


6     LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  liberty  to  live  their  own  lives  in  their  own  way. 
The  fundamental  idea  in  the  minds  of  all  of  them 
was  the  idea  of  the  right  of  men  and  communities  to 
govern  themselves  free  from  interference  from  with 
out.  If  they  were  themselves  sometimes  intolerant, 
their  intolerance  was  mainly  self-defensive,  and  those 
who  found  conditions  unsatisfactory  in  one  colony, 
were  free  to  remove  to  another.  A  vast,  unoccupied 
continent  lay  before  them  where  to  choose.  Thus 
when  conditions  in  Massachusetts  became  unbear 
able  to  such  liberty-loving  spirits  as  Roger  Williams 
and  Anne  Hutchinson  and  their  followers,  those 
persecuted  ones  removed  to  Rhode  Island.  And 
when  later  a  lesser  discontent  sprang  up  in  Massa 
chusetts,  a  large  body  of  the  people  living  there 
migrated  to  Connecticut,  in  search  of  a  larger  liberty. 
In  the  same  way,  when  the  Germans  in  New  York 
felt  themselves  hardly  used,  they  removed  to  Penn 
sylvania.  So,  too,  though  later,  the  Scotch-Irish  and 
others,  in  the  Carolinas,  crossed  the  mountains  and 
made  new  settlements  in  the  wilderness  at  cost  of 
great  hardship  to  themselves,  and,  having  done  so, 
threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  colonies  from  which  they 
had  come  and  set  up  little  states  of  their  own. 

Everywhere  the  dominating     thought  found  ex 
pression  in  revolt  against  all  authority  from  without, 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


8    LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  the  assertion  of  the  principle  of  local  self- 
government. 

Even  within  each  of  the  colonies,  this  thought 
was  crystallized  into  institutions  such  as  the  New 
England  Town  Meeting  and  the  Virginia  County 
Court — each  a  little  sovereignty  in  itself,  claiming 
and  exercising  the  right  of  home  rule. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  every  one  of  the 
colonies  had  been  planted  in  the  spirit  of  revolt 
against  conditions  or  institutions  that  had  bred  dis 
content,  and  that  the  history  of  their  growth  and  ex 
tension  had  been  a  story  of  successive  revolts  and 
removals  in  obedience  to  the  all-dominating  doctrine 
that  every  community  has  a  right  to  manage  its 
own  affairs  in  its  own  way.  That  thought  continued 
to  control  the  history  of  the  colonies  during  the 
period  from  the  dawn  of  the  century  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution.  The  history  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  a  story  of  revolt  in  the  name  of  liberty 
and  independence. 

The  seventeenth  century  had  been  a  period  of 
colony  planting  in  America.  That  work  of  planting 
had  been  successfully  done  by  brave  and  resolute 
men.  By  the  time  that  the  sixteen  hundreds  ended, 
and  the  seventeen  hundreds  began,  the  foundations  of 
a  great  nation  had  been  securely  laid  on  these  shores. 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY       9 

From  Maine  to  South  Carolina  there  were  firmly 
fixed  and  thoroughly  organized  English  colonies. 
These  were  no  longer  experimental  settlements. 
They  were  colonies  in  which  life  had  taken  perma 
nent  form.  Colonies  in  which  institutions — politi 
cal,  social,  religious  and  industrial — had  taken  root 
in  the  soil  and  become  fixed  for  good  or  ill. 

The  men  and  women  who  inhabited  America 
when  the  year  1701  intro 
duced  a  new  century,  had 
come  hither  to  stay. 
Many  of  them  had  been 
born  here  and  knew  no 
other  country  except  by 
tradition.  They  had  built 
up  homes  for  themselves.  Sawing  boards. 

They  had  organized  their  political  institutions  with 
reference  to  their  own  political  needs.  They  had  ar 
ranged  their  religious  affairs  in  each  colony  in 
accordance  with  their  several  beliefs,  but  mainly 
with  a  larger  tolerance  for  differences  than  had  been 
permitted  at  first.  They  had  organized  society 
upon  somewhat  new  lines,  more  democratic  than 
those  that  prevailed  in  England,  but  still  with 
marked  distinctions  between  classes. 

In  Virginia  the  first  colonists  had  been  succeeded 


10  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

by  a  large  immigration  of  well-to-do,  middle-class 
Englishmen,  including  a  few  persons  of  noble  blood. 
In  that  colony  the  dominating  impulse  had  been  to 
set  up  plantations  which  should  become  great  "  es 
tates  "  in  the  English  sense  of  the  term.  This 
impulse  really  determined  the  history  of  Virginia  for 
generations  afterwards,  the  great  planters  constituting 
a  dominant  and  controlling  class,  just  as  the  clergy 
men  were  in  New  England  and  the  patroons  in 
New  York. 

At  first  the  houses  of  the  colonists  had  been 
hovels,  or  holes  dug  in  the  ground,  or  bush  shelters, 
or  bark  huts.  When  New  York  consisted  of  thirty 
houses,  twenty-nine  of  them  were  bark  hovels. 
A  little  later  the  colonists  built  log  cabins  with 
earthen  floors.  A  little  later  still  the  houses  had 
been  log  cabins  with  "  puncheon  "  or  hewed  timber 
floors,  windows  made  of  greased  cambric,  or  greased 
paper,  and  chimneys  built  of  sticks  and  daubed  with 
mud.  But  as  the  quality  of  the  immigrants  im 
proved,  and  as  the  wealth  of  the  colonists  increased, 
the  houses  became  steadily  better  and  better. 

After  the  policy  of  the  private  ownership  of  land 
was  adopted  in  the  colony,  the  young  English  gen 
tlemen  who  settled  in  Virginia  had  an  easy  road 
open  to  them.  They  had  only  to  secure  a  grant 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY      11 

of  Virginia  lands,  a  thing  not  difficult  to  do.  Then, 
upon  their  arrival  in  the  colony,  they  had  only  to 
select  the  land  they  desired  and  make  it  their  own. 
Next  they  bought  white  servants  or  negro  slaves  to 
till  the  land  they  had  secured  by  patent  or  grant. 

In  the  main  they  employed  white  servants,  at 
least  during  the  first  three  quarters  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  During  that  time,  as  we  have  seen  in 
"  Our  First  Century,"  there  had  been  a  very  small 
importation  of  negro  slaves  into  the  colony.  As 
late  as  1671  there  were  only  about  two  thousand 
negroes  there,  while  the  white  servants  in  the  same 
year  numbered  no  less  than  six  thousand. 

As  soon  as  well-to-do  Englishmen  began  to  come 
to  the  colony  there  was  a  very  great  improvement 
in  the  quality  and  character  of  the  dwellings  erected. 
Brick  quickly  came  into  use.  At  first  bricks  were 
used  mainly  in  the  construction  of  chimneys.  These 
were  often  built  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  with  fire 
places  in  the  corners  of  four  rooms  on  each  floor  of 
the  house,  so  that  one  chimney  served  eight  rooms. 

But  these  chimneys  were  built  upon  cellar  foun 
dations  that  employed  brick  enough  to  build  two  or 
three  houses  under  modern  methods  of  construction. 

There  were  a  good  many  houses  built  entirely  of 
brick  both  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  These 


12  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

houses  were  usually  very  plain,  box-like  structures, 
with  piazzas  all  around  them,  but  they  were  in  that 
time  esteemed  almost  as  palaces,  while  their  owners, 
as  dwellers  in  brick  houses,  were  held  to  be  some 
thing  akin  to  nabobs. 

i 


Hand  mill. 

A  curious  misapprehension  has  arisen  out  of  this 
brick  building.  There  were  two  kinds  of  bricks  used 
— English  bricks  and  Holland  bricks.  For  a  long 
time  it  was  supposed  by  the  descendants  of  these 
builders  that  English  bricks  had  been  imported  from 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY      13 


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14  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

England,  and  Holland  bricks  from  Holland.  Even 
Washington  Irving,  with  all  the  minuteness  of  his 
learning,  has  fallen  into  that  error.  But  in  fact  all, 
or  very  nearly  all,  these  bricks,  whether  English  or 
Dutch,  were  made  in  America,  as  later  scholarly 
research  has  conclusively  proved.  The  only  differ 
ence  between  English  bricks  and  Dutch  bricks  was 
one  of  dimensions.  The  small  bricks,  molded  upon 
a  Dutch  model,  were  known  as  Holland  bricks.  The 
much  larger  ones,  molded  upon  an  English  model, 
were  called  English  bricks.  The  very  learned  and 
scholarly  historian  of  South  Carolina,  Mr.  McCrady, 
has  conclusively  proved  that  the  so-called  Eng 
lish  bricks  used  in  the  construction  of  Carolina 
houses  could  not  have  been  imported  from  England. 
By  simple  arithmetical  calculation  he  has  shown  that 
all  the  ships  landing  in  the  Carolinas  during  the 
seventeenth  century — even  if  all  of  them  had  been 
loaded  exclusively  with  bricks — could  not  have 
brought  in  enough  bricks  to  build  one  half  or  one 
fourth  the  "  English  brick  "  houses  of  that  part  of 
the  country. 

And  there  was  no  need.  In  all  the  colonies  there 
was  clay  fit  for  brickmaking  and  in  all  of  them 
there  were  skilled  brickmakers.  In  New  York  the 
brickmakers,  being  Dutchmen,  naturally  adopted 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY   15 

the  model  and  dimensions  of  the  Holland  brick 
mold,  and  made  Holland  bricks  along  the  Hud 
son.  In  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  as  the  brick- 
makers  were  Englishmen,  they  very  naturally  made 
use  of  English  dimensions  in  the  manufacture  of 
their  bricks.  So  extensive  was  this  industry  indeed 
that  the  Virginians  began  exporting  bricks  early  in 
the  seventeenth  century. 

But,  in  the  main,  colonial  houses  were  built  of 
wood.  In  all  the  colonies  there  was  timber  of  the 
best  sort  and  in  limitless  abundance.  There  were 
sawmills  in  America  before  there  were  any  in  Eng 
land,  and,  even  before  the  introduction  of  sawmills, 
the  colonists  found  it  cheaper  and  better  to  build 
of  wood  than  to  construct  brick  walls. 

They  built  substantially,  however.  They  laid 
sills  of  heart  pine  twelve  or  fourteen  inches  square, 
upon  brick  or  stone  foundations.  Into  these  they 
mortised — not  the  "  two  by  fours  "  of  flimsy  modern 
construction — but  solid,  heart  pine  or  white  ash  or 
oaken  uprights  eight  inches  square,  and  to  these  at 
the  top  they  mortised  great  "  wall  plates,"  a  foot  or 
more  in  diameter,  upon  which  they  imposed  a  roof 
with  rafters  seven  or  eight  inches  thick,  both  ways. 

Many  of  those  early  colonial  houses  endure  even 
unto  this  day,  both  in  the  south  and  in  the  north, 


16  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

bearing  eloquent  witness  to  the  honesty  and  the  con 
scientiousness  of  early  colonial  building. 

The  laws  made  in  England  were  mainly  antago 
nistic  to  colonial  manufactures.  It  was  intended  that 
the  colonies  should  be  "  feeders  "  of  English  pros- 


Old  iron  furnace  near  Warwick,  N.  Y. 

perity.  It  was  hoped  that  they  would  send  to  Eng 
land  large  supplies  of  raw  materials,  and  largely  buy 
the  products  of  English  manufacture,  thus  paying 
a  double  tribute  to  English  interests. 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY      17 

It  was  hoped,  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  that  a  considerable  supply  of 
crude  iron  might  be  smelted  in  the  colonies  and 
sent  to  England  for  manufacture  there  into  articles 
of  use.  Coal  had  not  yet  come  into  general  use  as 
a  fuel  supply  anywhere  in  the  world,  and  the  wood 
lands  of  England  were  to  a  great  extent  exhausted. 
So  it  was  thought  that  iron  might  be  more  cheaply 
smelted  in  the  colonies,  where  there  were  limitless 
forests  to  furnish  fuel,  than  in  England.  But  the 
English  manufacturers  very  jealously  wanted  the 
profit  of  converting  the  colony-smelted  iron  into 
utensils  of  every  kind  which  could  be  sold  back  to 
the  colonies.  Accordingly,  in  1719,  and  later,  the 
same  English  laws  which  encouraged  the  smelting 
of  iron  in  the  colonies,  peremptorily  forbade  the 
colonial  manufacture  of  such  iron  into  instruments 
of  use.  The  plan  was  to  have  the  crude  iron  made 
on  the  American  side  of  the  ocean,  shipped  to  Eng 
land  and  there  manufactured  into  articles  of  use 
which  might  be  sent  back  to  the  colonies  and  there 
sold  for  a  rich  profit. 

In  the  same  way,  and  in  a  like  spirit,  the  English 
laws  during  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century 
encouraged  the  manufacture  of  glass  in  Virginia, 
where  fuel  was  cheap  and  plentiful,  but  forbade  the 


18  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

colonial  manufacture  of  beads  and  trinkets  of  such 
glass.  Beads  and  trinkets  were  used  as  currency  in 
trade  with  the  Indians,  and  certain  people  in  Lon 
don  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  the  Indian  trade.  So 
while  the  colonists  were  encouraged  to  make  crude 
glass  they  were  absolutely  forbidden  to  make  beads 
and  bangles  of  it.  That  must  be  done  in  England. 


Spinning  flax. 

Under  a  like  impulse  the  English  law  encouraged, 
with  tobacco  bounties,  the  manufacture  of  linen  on 
this  side  of  the  ocean,  simply  because  there  was  no 
great  interest  in  England  in  such  manufacture. 
And  in  the  same  way  England  encouraged  the  pro- 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY   19 

duction  here  of  ship  stores,  by  liberal  bounties. 
But  the  English  laws  at  the  same  time  forbade  the 
manufacture  of  woolen  cloths  here,  on  the  ground 
that  the  colonists  should  buy  such  cloths  from  Eng 
land.  In  brief,  the  English  laws  encouraged  the  col 
onists  to  do  the  best  they  could  for  themselves  so 
long  as  they  did  not  compete  with  British  interests. 
Beyond  that  line  the  English  law  said  "Nay!"  to 
colonial  enterprise. 

All  these  are  illustrative  examples  only.  We 
have  already  seen,  in  "  Our  First  Century,"  how  res 
olutely  the  colonists  acted  upon  their  own  impulses, 
and  in  answer  to  their  own  needs.  In  spite  of  the 
laws,  which  for  a  long  time  were  not  rigorously  en 
forced,  they  converted  their  crude  iron  into  such 
utensils  as  they  needed.  In  spite  of  the  foreign  law 
they  made  woolen  clothing  for  themselves.  Even 
in  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Virginia  colony  a  re 
strictive  law  did  not  prevent  the  colonists  from  mak 
ing  glass  beads  and  trading  them  to  the  Indians  for 
corn. 

All  these  things  tended  to  the  ultimate  establish 
ment  of  American  liberty  and  independence.  These, 
and  like  things,  were  causes  of  friction,  and  out  of 
that  friction  came  revolt  and  revolution  quite  as  a 
matter  of  course.  The  colonies  had  been  planted 


20  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

in  America  for  the  benefit  of  English  companies  and 
English  Lords  Proprietors  and  English  manufac 
turers  and  the  English  King.  The  colonists  had 
conquered  a  wilderness  and  created  an  empire. 


Spinning  wool. 

They  very  naturally  desired  to  reap  for  themselves 
the  harvest  of  the  planting  they  had  done  at  so  great 
a  cost  of  hardship,  suffering,  danger  and  limitless  toil. 
There  was  in  the  future  inevitable  war  between 
these  two  aims  and  aspirations,  though  that  war  was 


DAWN  OF  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY      2l 

long  delayed  in  its  coming.  It  is  the  purpose  of 
this  volume  to  tell  how  events  slowly  led  up  to  the 
outbreak. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  there 
was  no  thought  of  other  than  local  independence  in 
the  colonies.  The  colonists  already  had  grievances, 
but  the  idea  of  final  and  resolute  revolt  had  not  yet 
been  born  in  their  minds.  All  that  came  later.  In 
the  meanwhile,  as  we  shall  see  in  later  chapters  of 
this  volume,  they  were  beset  by  difficulties  and  dan 
gers  sufficient  to  occupy  their  attention  to  the  ut 
most  limit. 


CHAPTER   II 

FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY 

DURING  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  two  influences  were  at  work  that  vitally 
affected  the  character  and  history  of  the  colo 
nies.  One  of  these  was  a  succession  of  wars  between 
the  Englishmen  in  America,  and  the  French  and 
Spanish  with  their  Indian  allies.  These  wars,  ot 
which  the  details  are  so  fully  given  in  all  the  school 
histories  that  they  need  not  be  repeated  here  except 
in  barest  outline,  vexed  the  colonies  and  sorely 
afflicted  the  colonists.  They  cbst  many  lives  and 
much  treasure  ;  they  involved  the  destruction  of 
many  outlying  towns  and  the  ravaging  of  many 
farms,  whose  men,  women  and  children  were  butch 
ered  indiscriminately.  But  the  wars  served  to 
strengthen  the  colonies,  and  especially  to  breed 
among  the  people  a  spirit  of  self-reliance  and  self- 
confidence  which  served  them  in  good  stead  when 
the  time  came,  later  in  the  century,  for  the  final 
struggle  for  independence.  They  taught  the  colo- 
22 


FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY 


23 


nies  that  they  could  stand  alone  and  take  care  of 
themselves.  More  important  still,  they  accustomed 
the  colonists  to  think  of  America,  rather  than  of 


Map  illustrating  the  French  and  Indian  Wars. 


24  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

England,  as  their  own  country.  The  subtle  influ 
ence  of  this  changed  habit  of  mind  is  clearly  seen 
in  the  steady  and  continuous  growth  of  the  spirit  of 
independence,  which  we  shall  trace  as  we  go  on  with 
the  story. 

The  first  of  these  French  and  Indian  wars — 
known  in  history  as  King  William's  War — came  to 
an  end  in  1697,  just  before  the  dawn  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century.  In  the  making  of  peace,  unfortu 
nately  for  the  colonists,  the  English  government  gave 
up  all  that  the  Americans  had  won  for  themselves  by 
their  heroic  endeavors  and  still  more  heroic  sacrifices. 
The  French  were  left  in  possession  of  all  the  terri 
tory  they  had  ever  held  in  America,  and  they  were 
free  to  continue  their  policy  of  pushing  their  trading 
posts  into  the  great  fertile  region  west  of  the  moun 
tains,  a  region  which  they  already  claimed  as  their 
own.  It  is  true  that  the  English  colonists  had  not 
yet  begun  to  go  into  that  country  to  any  considerable 
extent,  and  so,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  the  French 
advance  into  it  gave  the  colonists  no  trouble.  But 
statesmanship  must  even  then  have  foreseen  those 
later  consequences  which  proved  so  hazardous  to 
the  growth  of  the  English  settlements. 

The  peace  made  in    1697,  lasted    no   more    than 
five  years.     In  1702,  upon  Queen  Anne's  accession 


FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY         25 

to  the  English  throne,  war  broke  out  anew  between 
England  and  France,  and  it  involved  the  English 
and  French  colonies  in  America,  as  a  matter  of 
course.  At  the  same  time  the  Spanish  assailed  the 
Americans,  thus  doubly  endangering  the  English 
colonies.  The  French  lay  north  of  New  England, 
while  the  Spanish  lay  south  of  the  Carolinas,  and 
both  were  aided  by  savage  Indian  allies. 

The  war  lasted  for  eleven  years,  in 
volving  much  of  slaughter,  especially 
in  the  New  England  colonies  which 
were  continually  ravaged.  It  ended 
at  last,  however,  with  distinct  advan 
tage  to  the  English  colonists.  At  the 
south  a  Spanish  expedition  against 
Charleston  was  beaten  off,  and  the 
Carolinians  under  Colonel  Moore 
conquered  and  permanently  held  all 
that  part  of  what  was  then  Florida, 
which  now  constitutes  most  of  the 
State  of  Georgia.  At  the  north,  the  English  colo 
nists,  with  the  assistance  of  English  war  ships,  again 
conquered  Acadia  and  when  peace  was  made  the 
English  retained  control  of  that  region,  restoring  to  it 
its  old  name  of  Nova  Scotia,  and  changing  the  name 
of  its  capital  from  Port  Royal  to  Annapolis  Royal. 


26  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  peace  made  in  1713  lasted  until  1744,  but 
only  in  a  half  peaceful  way,  so  far  as  the  French  and 
English  in  America  were  concerned.  So  long  as 
England  and  France  were  at  peace  on  the  other  side 
of  the  ocean,  their  colonies  in  America  were  forbidden 
to  make  war  upon  each  other.  But  the  hostility 


Acadia,  Port  Royal  and  Louisbourg  and  the  route  by  sea 
between  Boston  and  Quebec. 

between  them  remained  in  full  force,  and  the  French 
not  only  encouraged  Indian  incursions  into  the  Eng 
lish  colonies,  but  furnished  French  leaders  for  such 
irruptions. 

The  other  influence  to  which  reference  has  been 


FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY         27 

made  as  one  vitally  affecting  the  future  of  this 
country,  was  the  large  and  varied  immigration  that 
poured  into  the  colonies  during  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  That  immigration  not  only  in 
creased  the  numerical  strength  of  the  colonists  but 
it  brought  with  it  new  ideas  and  new  modes  of  liv 
ing  which  had  their  influence  upon  life  in  America. 
During  the  earlier  colonial  period,  including 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century,  nearly 


Old  Swedish  Church,  Wilmington,  Del. 

all  the  immigrants  who  had  come  to  the  English 
colonies,  except  the  Dutch  in  New  York  and  a 
small  number  of  Swedes,  were  Englishmen.  But 
near  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  new  and 
important  inflow  began,  which  continued,  in  greater 
or  less  force,  for  more  than  forty  years. 


28  LIFE  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

There  were  many  little  sects  in  Germany  who, 
upon  religious  grounds,  were  averse  to  war  and  who 
therefore  desired  to  escape  from  a  country  in  which 
every  man  was  expected  to  serve  as  a  soldier.  These 
sects  were  persecuted  for  their  religion  and  addition 
ally  upon  the  ground  that  they  refused  to  do  the  work 
of  soldiers.  There  were  still  other  Germans  who 
for  political  reasons  came  to  America.  Atone  time 
as  many  as  thirteen  thousand  of  them  removed  from 
the  Palatinate  of  the  lower  Rhine  to  England  and 
asked  the  government  there  to  send  them  to  Amer 
ica.  They  were  sent  to  many  of  the  colonies  and 
scattered  through  them.  They  gave  an  impulse  of 
German  ideas,  and  German  civilization,  and  German 
ways  of  living,  to  the  communities  in  which  they 
settled.  It  is  noteworthy  that  many  years  later, 
when  the  time  came  for  real  righting  to  be  done,  for 
real  principle,  these  Germans  proved  to  be  excellent 
soldiers  in  spite  of  the  prejudice  that  many  of  them 
felt  against  war. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  con 
siderable  number  of  Germans  immigrated  into  New 
York.  They  became  dissatisfied  with  conditions 
there  and  a  little  later  they  removed  themselves  to 
Pennsylvania,  where  they  were  well  received  and 
where  the  spirit  of  the  government  accorded  with 


FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY 


29 


their  own.  These  Germans  were  the  forefathers  of 
the  thrifty  and  sturdy  Americans  who  were  for  long 
ignorantly  called  Pennsylvania  Dutch. 

During  this  same  period  there  began  what  after 
ward  became  a  very  large  immigration  of  men  and 
women  who  were  commonly  known  as  Scotch-Irish. 
They  were  properly  not  Irishmen  and  Irishwomen 
in  blood  but  Scotchmen  and 
Scotchwomen.  They  were 
Presbyterians  whose  fore 
fathers  had  removed  them 
selves  from  Scotland  to  the 
north  of  Ireland  where  they 
had  engaged  in  the  business 
of  manufacturing  linen. 
That  industry  was  an  un 
certain  one  at  that  time,  so 
that  many  of  these  so-called 
Scotch-Irish  were  often 
thrown  out  of  work  by  reason  of  a  depression  in  the 
linen  industry.  Many  of  them  managed  to  emigrate 
to  America  where  they  introduced  the  linen  industry 
and  the  cultivation  of  the  potato. 

The  so-called  Irish  potato  is  one  of  the  note 
worthy  American  contributions  to  the  sustenance  of 
man.  But  it  was  probably  not  found  in  a  wild  state 


An  early  printing  press. 


30  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

anywhere  within  the  borders  of  what  we  now  know 
as  the  United  States.  It  was  found  growing  wild 
in  Central  and  South  America  and  was  taken  thence 
to  Ireland  where  its  enormous  fruitfulness  made  it  a 
principal  crop.  The  Scotch-Irish  who  came  to  the 
English  colonies  in  America  brought  it  with  them 
and  introduced  its  culture  here.  That  is  why  we 
call  it  the  Irish  potato. 

These  Scotch-Irish  immigrants  settled  themselves 
in  all  the  colonies,  but  particularly  in  Pennsylvania, 
where,  as  early  as  1729,  five  thousand  of  them  lo 
cated  themselves  in  Philadelphia.  This  immigration 
proved  afterwards  to  be  of  the  utmost  advantage  to 
the  colonists.  The  Scotch-Irishmen  were  good 
fighters,  as  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen  have  always 
been  throughout  the  world.  They  were  an  ener 
getic  race,  eager  to  push  into  the  wilderness  and 
ready  to  accept  any  hardships  or  dangers  they  might 
be  called  upon  to  endure  and  to  open  up  the  new 
regions  to  settlement  by  virtue  of  their  courage, 
their  determination,  and  that  which  we  call  "  pluck.'* 

Another  valuable  class  of  immigrants  had  come 
into  this  country  about  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  These  were  the  Huguenots,  or  French 
Protestants,  who  were  driven  out  of  France  by  the 
religious  persecutions  and  civil  wars  of  that  time, 


FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY         31 

and  who  came  in  large  numbers  to  the  English  colo 
nies  in  America.  They  settled  in  all  of  the  colonies 
but  mainly  in  South  Carolina,  where  they  became  the 
aristocrats  and  the  wealthiest  people  of  a  later  time 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  had  come  to  America 
completely  stripped  of  all  their  possesions  and  ut 
terly  impoverished.  To  this  day,  on  the  coast  of 
South  Carolina,  the  names  of  the  great  landholders 
and  the  great  families  are  mainly  Huguenot  names. 
It  will  be  observed  that  all  these  immigrants — 
Germans,  Scotch-Irish  and  Huguenots — quitted 
their  native  lands  and  came  to  America,  just  as  the 
Puritans,  and  the  Cavaliers,  and  the  Quakers,  and  the 
Catholics  had  done,  because  they  were  discontented 
with  their  lot,  and  mainly  because  of  religious  perse 
cution.  Thus  practically  all  the  American  colonists 
were  men  in  revolt  against  oppression,  men  whose 
all-controlling  impulse  and  inspiration  was  a  love  of 
liberty  and  a  fixed  purpose  to  assert  and  maintain 
the  right  of  men  to  govern  themselves.  Of  such 
seed  our  country  came. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   GEORGIA  COLONY 

NOTWITHSTANDING      Colonel    Moore's 
conquest  of  that  part  of  the  original   Florida 

which  at  present  constitutes  almost  all  of 
the  State  of  Georgia,  the  Spanish  in  Florida  con 
tinued  to  claim  not  only  the  whole  of  what  we  now 
call  Georgia,  but  the  whole  of  South  Carolina  as 
well,  contending  that  it  was  Spanish  territory.  They 
were  always  ready  to  fight  for  it  when  occasion 
offered. 

In  view  of  this  situation  General  James  Ogle- 
thorpe — an  English  military  man  of  distinction — 
concluded  that  it  would  be  well  to  plant  a  military 
colony  south  of  South  Carolina,  in  that  part  of  the 
country  which  Colonel  Moore  had  conquered,  in 
order  to  provide  for  the  permanent  military  pro 
tection  of  the  Carolinas  against  Spanish  invasion. 
He  had  other  ideas  in  mind  also.  He  was  at 
once  a  military  man  and  a  philanthropist.  As  a 
military  man  he  wanted  to  defend  the  Carolinas 

32 


THE  GEORGIA  COLONY 


33 


against  Spanish  aggression.  As  a  philanthropist  he 
wanted  to  do  some  other  things.  In  1732  he  se 
cured  from  King  George  II  of  England  a  grant,  to 


General  James   Oglethorpe. 


himself  and   his   associates,    of  that  part   of  South 
Carolina  which  lay  between  the  Savannah  and  the 


34  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

Altamaha  Rivers — substantially  that  region  which 
now  constitutes  the  State  of  Georgia  by  virtue  of 
the  fact  that  Oglethorpe  gave  it  that  name  in  honor 
of  his  king. 

Unlike  all  those  others  who  had  become  proprie 
tors  in  America,  Oglethorpe  and  his  associates  had 
no  thought  of  personal  profit  in  securing  this  terri 
tory.  It  was  his  primary  purpose  to  establish  in 
that  region  a  philanthropic  colony — a  colony  in 
which  poor  men  who  had  failed  in  England  might 
begin  life  anew.  As  he  himself  declared,  he  and  his 
associates  purposed  to  hold  the  land  "  in  trust  for 
the  poor." 

He  lavishly  expended  his  own  wealth  in  satisfy 
ing  the  creditors  of  prisoners  for  debt  in  England  and 
in  removing  them  to  his  colony  where  they  might 
hope  to  build  up  fortunes  for  themselves.  "  Not 
for  self  but  for  others,"  is  a  literal  translation  of 
the  Latin  motto  he  adopted  for  his  enterprise.  This 
he  put  upon  the  seal  of  his  colony,  together  with 
a  device  of  silkworms  engaged  in  spinning ;  for  it 
was  a  part  of  his  purpose  to  make  of  Georgia  a 
source  of  silk  supply,  so  that  England  might  not  be 
further  dependent  upon  Italy  and  the  Orient  for  the 
raw  materials  of  silk  manufacture. 

Landing    at    Charleston,    Oglethorpe    began    his 


THE  GEORGIA  COLONY 


35 


colonization  at  Savannah  in  1733  with  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  persons  as  his   followers.      He  had  ar 
ranged  for  other   colonists   to   follow   him   in    rapid 
succession   and   they   did   so.     Among    them  was  a 
regiment  of  Scotch  Highlanders,  upon  whom  he  de 
pended  to  defend   the   border  and 
to  give  a  military  character  to  his 
colony   from    the   first.      He  also 
brought  out  twenty  Jewish  fami 
lies,    escaping    from    persecution, 
and  a  number  of  Protestants  from 
Germany.      His  views  were  liberal 
if  we  measure  them  by  the  stan 
dards  of  that  time.      He  accepted 
Jews  and  men  of  every  Protestant 
sect.      But  he  placed  a  ban  upon 
Georgia  and  Florida     Roman  Catholics  and  unbelievers, 
excluding   them    from    his   settle- 

thorpe's  time. 

ments. 

Oglethorpe  was  a  domineering  person  of  a  mili 
tary  type  who  insisted  upon  having  his  own  way  in 
everything.  The  Indians  liked  him,  partly  because 
he  treated  them  fairly,  paying  them  a  proper  price 
for  such  lands  of  theirs  as  he  wished  to  occupy,  and 
partly  because  of  his  soldierly  endurance  of  hard 
ship.  The  Indians  always  admire  courage  and 


36  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

"  grit "  wherever  they  see  them  and  they  found 
Oglethorpe  a  man  to  be  admired. 

But  like  many  others  who  planned  colonies  in 
America,  Oglethorpe  undertook  to  rule  too  much. 
He  allowed  his  colonists  no  voice  whatever  in  the 
government  of  the  community  in  which  they  lived. 
He  allowed  no  man  to  own  any  land  in  his  own  right. 
He  assigned  to  each  of  them  fifty  acres  of  ground, 
a  space  which  was  utterly  insufficient  to  provide 
for  the  needs  of  a  family,  if  we  reflect  that  a  certain 
part  of  the  land  must  be  held  in  forest  for  the 
furnishing  of  fuel,  a  certain  other  part  must  be  de 
voted  to  the  support  of  farm  animals,  only  a  small 
remainder  being  left  for  crop  cultivation. 

Worse  still,  the  fifty  acres  granted  to  each  colonist 
were  not  granted  in  fee  simple.  The  colonist  could 
not  sell  an  acre  of  it  or  even  rent  an  acre.  At  his 
death  he  could  not  transmit  his  land  equitably  to 
his  children.  By  Oglethorpe's  decree,  at  the  death 
of  each  landholder  his  land  was  given  to  his  eldest 
son  or,  if  he  had  no  son,^it  reverted  to  the  trustees 
of  the  colony,  the  wife  and  daughters  losing  every 
thing.  No  man  was  permitted  to  control  more 
than-  fifty  acres  unless  he  brought  into  the  colony, 
at  his  own  expense,  enough  white  servants  to  culti 
vate  the  surplus  area. 


THE  GEORGIA  COLONY  37 

As  it  was  Oglethorpe's  purpose  to  establish  a 
military  colony,  and  seemingly  for  that  reason  only, 
he  decreed  that  no  negro  slaves  should  be  held 
within  its  borders.  His  idea  was  that  he  wanted 
there  only  white  men  who  could  be  depended 
upon  to  serve  as  soldiers  and  thus  to  maintain 
Georgia's  military  power  as  a  defence  against  the 
Spanish. 

These  restrictions  operated  detrimentally  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  colony.  As  the  people  could  not 
own  their  lands  or  hold  more  than  fifty  acres  apiece, 
even  as  renters,  they  had  no  inducement  to  improve 
their  property  or  to  extend  their  estates.  As  their 
cultivation  of  the  soil  was  in  direct  competition  with 
that  of  the  Carolinas  and  Virginia,  where  negro 
slaves  were  by  that  time  held  in  considerable  num 
bers,  the  prohibition  of  slavery  placed  them  at 
serious  economic  disadvantage.  So  seriously  did  this 
embarrass  the  progress  of  the  colony  indeed  that  in 
1749  the  rule  against  negro  slavery  was  abrogated 
and  Georgia  became  a  colony  with  slavery  as  a 
recognized  part  of  its  institutions.  Three  years 
later  the  colony  became  a  royal  one  and  remained 
so  until  the  Revolutionary  War.  That  is  to  say, 
it  passed  out  of  Oglethorpe's  control  and  into  that 
of  the  King  of  England,  who  allowed  the  colonists 


38   LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

to  own  their  land  and  transmit  it  to  their  children. 
Under  this  wiser  rule  the  colony  rapidly  became 
prosperous  and  it  served  from  beginning  to  end  of 
the  colonial  period  as  a  barrier  against  Spanish  in 
vasion  of  the  Carolinas. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS 

THERE  were  very  marked  differences  between 
life  in  South  Carolina  and  life  in  Oglethorpe's 
Georgia  colony  although  they  adjoined  each 
other.  Among  the  Carolina  colonists  there  had 
been  a  large  number  of  well-to-do  Englishmen  who 
came  out  with  wealth  enough  to  take  up  great  areas 
of  land,  to  establish  vast  plantations  upon  such  land 
and  to  build  there  mansions  for  their  occupation- 
some  of  brick  and  some  of  splendidly  hewn  timber 
— which  should  be  as  dear  to  them  as  the  historic 
homes  of  England  were  to  their  owners.  They 
had  surrounded  themselves  with  negro  servants  in 
considerable  numbers  and  they  had  established  them 
selves  in  state  as  lords  of  the  soil  and  gentlemen  of 
consequence  in  the  colony. 

These  gentlemen  lived  in  stately — almost  lordly — 

fashion.      Their  plantations  were  immense  in  extent. 

Their  house  grounds  were  often  so  large  as  to  admit 

of  live  oak  avenues  a  mile   long,  leading  from  the 

39 


40  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

outer  gates  to  the  portals  of  the  mansion.  In 
the  mansion  itself  the  rooms  were  spacious  and 
the  halls  immense.  In  the  rooms  and  the  halls 
alike  there  were  great  fireplaces  which  in  cold 
weather  blazed  with  logs  of  fat  pine  five  or 
six  feet  long.  The  floors  were  made  of  the  hard, 
resinous,  long-leafed  pine  of  that  country,  and 
were  polished  every  morning  by  a  rubbing  down 
with  pine  needles.  The  furniture  was  of  rosewood, 
or  mahogany,  or  cedar,  and  it  also  was  polished 
daily  by  negro  servants  with  wax  and  great  blocks 
of  cork.  These  processes  would  be  expensive  in 
any  modern  community,  but  in  that  time,  when  labor 
was  abundant  and  cost  next  to  nothing,  they  were 
easily  managed. 

The  most  productive  plantations  in  South  Caro 
lina  were  those  which  lay  either  upon  the  sea  islands 
or  in  the  low  country  between  the  sea  islands  and 
the  pine  lands  above.  It  had  early  been  found  that 
these  low  countries  were  so  far  malarious  that  white 
men  could  not  safely  live  there  between  June  and 
November  and  so  almost  every  planter  in  those 
regions  '  maintained  a  little  summer  place,  up  in  the 
pines,  where  there  were  no  black  sands,  no  long  gray 
moss,  and  no  live  oak  trees,  the  absence  of  these 
things  indicating  also  the  absence  of  malaria. 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS     41 

The  live  oak  tree  was  the  glory  of  the  low  coun 
try  plantations.  Great  avenues  of  those  trees  were 
festooned  with  gray  moss,  which  hung  often  even 


A  plantation  gateway,  entrance  to  the  estate  of  William  Byrd  at 
Westover,  Va. 


42  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

to  the  ground.  But  in  summer  and  autumn  the 
planter  found  it  necessary  to  remove  the  white  por 
tion  of  his  family  either  to  Charleston  or  to  the 
pine  lands.  The  shell  cottages  that  served  as  sum 
mer  homes  were  often  adorned  with  rich  works  of 
art  brought  over  from  England. 

Of  course  these  rich  planters  were  few  in  number. 
There  were  many  poorer  families  in  South  Carolina 
who  lived  in  much  simpler  ways  than  this,  but  it 
was  the  nabobs  of  that  country  who  gave  character 
to  its  life. 

The  sports  of  that  region  were  such  as  had  been 
imported  from  England — horse  racing  and  hunting 
being  chief  among  them. 

The  great  plantations  lay  originally  along  the 
water  courses  with  which  that  region  is  intricately 
interlaced.  This  was  partly  because  the  lands  along 
these  water  courses  were  the  most  fruitful  ones  and 
partly  because  the  water  courses,  all  of  which  were 
navigable  by  sloops,  afforded  an  easy  means  of  com 
munication  with  Charleston,  which  was  at  once  the 
political  and  social  capital  of  the  colony  and  the 
market  for  all  the  products  of  the  region  round 
about. 

The  settlers  in  Georgia  were  mainly  of  a  different 
class.  Oglethorpe  had  taken  pains  that  they  should 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS     43 

be  chiefly  poor,  hard  working  men  fit  for  military 
duty,  and  his  system  tended  to  keep  them  poor. 
They  lived  far  more  simply  than  the  Carolinians 


Carved  doorway,  Bull  Pringle  Mansion,  Charleston,  S.  C. 

did  and  far  less  pretentiously.  They  were  farmers 
rather  than  planters  and  even  after  the  restriction  of 
land  ownership  to  fifty  acres  was  set  aside  they  were 


44  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

still,  in  the  main,  small  landholders  toiling  hard  for 
their  subsistence. 

Two  things  occurred  during  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury  which  not  only  encouraged  but  rendered  almost 
necessary  the  South  Carolina  method  of  planting 
and  living. 

In  the  year  1696  some  rice  was  planted  by  one 
Thomas  Smith  in  a  Charleston  garden.  The  seed 
came  from  Madagascar,  but  it  found  a  congenial 
home  on  the  South  Carolina  coast.  A  little  later 
the  culture  of  that  grain  became  general  along  the 
coast  and  was  encouraged  by  many  circumstances. 
The  lands  that  lay  between  the  sea  islands  and  the 
higher  ground  on  the  west  were  so  nearly  flat  that 
they  lent  themselves  perfectly  to  rice  culture.  They 
were  divided  into  vast  fields,  separated  from  each 
other  by  dams.  It  was  easy  to  flood  the  field  near 
est  the  higher  lands  so  long  as  it  needed  to  be 
flooded,  and  it  was  equally  easy  by  opening  a  flood 
gate  to  draw  the  water  from  that  field  into  the  next 
one,  when  its  time  of  flooding  should  come.  In 
brief,  the  conditions  of  rice  culture  on  the  coast  of 
South  Carolina  were  the  most  perfect  that  have  ever 
been  known  in  the  world,  and  rice  quickly  became 
the  staple  crop  of  that  region,  attaining  there  a  per 
fection  which  has  been  known  nowhere  else  in  the 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS    45 

world.  This  was  the  beginning  of  Carolina's  pros 
perity. 

There  were  many  fields  of  course  that  were  not 
adapted  to  the  cultivation  of  rice  of  a  superior  qual 
ity,  and  the  Carolinians  were  deeply  concerned  to 
find  some  other  staple  crop  that  should  enable  them 
to  make  the  most  of  their  possessions.  The  cotton 
gin,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  not  yet  been  in 
vented  and  for  lack  of  it  the  cultivation  of  cotton 
was  unprofitable  because  of  the  enormous  labor  cost 
of  separating  the  seed  from  the  lint. 

In  1739  a  brilliant  young  woman,  who  afterwards 
became  the  mother  of  some  of  Carolina's  greatest 
revolutionary  men,  solved  this  crop  problem  in  a 
most  interesting  way.  This  young  woman  was 
Eliza  Lucas,  afterwards  Eliza  Pinckney.  Her 
father  was  the  English  governor  of  a  West  Indian 
Island.  He  owned  three  great  plantations  on  the 
Carolina  coast  not  far  from  Charleston,  and  his 
daughter  was  sent  to  manage  them. 

She  was  a  young  woman  of  culture — though  she 
spelled  abominably — and  of  limitless  aspirations  for 
culture.  She  studied  music  diligently,  and  sent  all 
over  the  world  for  musical  publications  that  might 
help  her  in  that  study.  While  busying  herself  with 
her  music,  her  reading,  and  her  social  duties,  which 


46  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

were  extensive,  she  managed  her  three  plantations 
with  a  skill  which  has  rarely  been  equaled.  She 
not  only  directed  the  planting  and  the  growing  of 
the  crops  and  superintended  their  sale,  but  she  man 
aged  also  the  fleet  of  sloops  and  schooners  belong 
ing  to  her,  by  which  she  shipped  the  products  of 
the  plantations  to  Charleston  for  sale.  She  was  in 
deed  a  wonderful  woman,  as  her  letters,  some  of 
which  have  been  preserved  and  published  by  her 
descendant,  Mrs.  Ravenel,  abundantly  attest. 

This  energetic  young  woman  made  up  her  mind, 
about  1739,  to  introduce  into  South  Carolina  the 
culture  of  indigo  on  lands  unfit  for  the  growing  of 
rice  in  its  perfection.  She  secured  the  necessary 
seeds.  She  lost  her  first  crop  by  frost  and  her 
second  by  worms,  but  she  succeeded  in  bringing  the 
third  to  a  perfection  of  growth  that  entirely  satisfied 
her  ambition.  But  to  grow  the  indigo  plant  is  one 
thing  and  to  make  the  indigo  dye  from  it  is  another 
and  much  more  difficult  one.  So  Eliza  Lucas  sent 
to  her  father  for  an  expert  in  that  process  to  aid  her 
in  converting  the  fruitage  of  her  fields  into  a  market 
able  commodity. 

This  man  played  her  false.  He  knew  how  to 
prepare  the  dye  from  the  plant,  but  he  deliberately 
spoiled  results  in  carrying  on  the  process.  Eliza 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS    47 

Lucas  always  thought  this  was  because  he  feared  the 
competition  of  the  Carolinian  indigo  industry  with 
the  indigo  industry  of  his  own  island  in  the  West 
Indies.  However  that  may  be,  he  utterly  spoiled 
the  product.  But  Eliza  Lucas  was  a  determined 
young  woman.  Even  through  her  agent's  failure, 
she  managed  somehow  to  learn  his  art.  Then  she 
sent  him  "packing"  back  to  his  West  India  island 
and  proceeded  to  convert  her  own  crop  into  a  supe 
rior  quality  of  indigo  manufactured  by  herself. 

She  worked  over  this  problem  for  several  years, 
and  by  the  year  1745  she  had  fully  introduced  the 
culture  and  manufacture  of  indigo  into  South  Caro 
lina  so  that  two  years  later  no  less  than  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds  of  the  precious  dyestuff  were 
shipped  to  England,  returning  a  great  sum  of  money 
as  its  price. 

This  industry  was  an  enormous  boon  to  South 
Carolina  for  nearly  half  a  century  afterward.  It  con 
tinued  until  the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  made 
cotton  culture  a  more  profitable  thing  in  the  hands 
of  the  very  ignorant  plantation  laborers  of  that  time. 

The  cultivation  of  indigo  did  not  entirely  cease, 
indeed,  until  nearly  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  our 
Civil  War  in  1861.  Perhaps  it  would  never  have 
been  abandoned  at  all  except  upon  grounds  of  hu- 


48  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

manity.  It  was  found  after  awhile,  by  planters  in 
the  South,  that  the  negroes  who  worked  in  indigo 
became  specially  subject  to  pulmonary  consumption 
by  inhaling  the  extremely  fine  dust  of  the  dye,  and 
in  order  to  spare  their  lives  one  planter  after  another 
gave  up  the  culture  of  that  plant. 

From  the  time  (1670),  when  the  Westoes  Indians 
so  nearly  destroyed  the  colony  of  Carolina,  until 
1711,  that  colony  was  comparatively  free  from 
trouble  with  the  Indians.  But  there  was  one  warlike 
tribe,  the  Tuscaroras,  in  North  Carolina,  which 
looked  jealously  upon  the  rapid  growth  of  the  white 
men's  plantations.  This  tribe,  although 
far  removed  in  distance,  belonged  in  fact 
to  the  Iroquois,  whose  Five  Nations  oc 
cupied  northern  New  York.  In  1711 
the  Tuscaroras  made  fierce  war  upon  the  indiahmocca- 
North  Carolina  settlements.  sins- 

For  nearly  two  years  there  was  serious  danger 
that  the  northern  part  of  the  Carolina  colony  would 
be  completely  destroyed.  The  Virginians  and  the 
Carolinians  of  the  southern  part  of  the  colony,  how 
ever,  came  to  the  assistance  of  their  brethren  in  what 
is  now  North  Carolina  and,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Yemassee  Indians,  succeeded  at  last  in  completely 
routing  the  Tuscaroras. 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS     4b 

After  the  manner  of  that  time  many  of  the  In 
dians  were  captured  and  sold  into  West  Indian 
slavery.  But  a  large  part  of  the  tribe  of  Tuscaroras 
escaped  and  made  its  way  to  New  York,  where  it 
became  the  Sixth  nation  of  the  Iroquois  Confed 
eracy. 

Two  years  later  another  Indian  war  occurred  in 
which  the  Yemassees,  who  had  aided  the  whites 
against  the  Tuscaroras,  were  the  chief  enemies  of 
the  whites.  This  war  was  brought  about  by  Spanish 
influence  from  Florida  and  six  or  seven  thousand 
Indian  warriors  were  engaged  in  it.  It  brought 
upon  South  Carolina  the  most  serious  danger  that 
that  colony  had  ever  encountered  from  the  Indians. 
The  Carolinians  could  bring  against  the  six  or 
seven  thousand  Indians  no  more  than  seventeen 
hundred  men,  two  or  three  hundred  of  whom  were 
negroes.  For  in  that  day  and  long  afterwards  ne 
groes  were  freely  employed  as  soldiers,  and  the  law 
of  South  Carolina  made  it  a  penal  offence  for  the 
owner  of  any  negro  slave  to  refuse  his  services  to 
the  country  as  a  soldier.  After  a  desperate  struggle, 
which  endured  during  three  years,  the  Indians  were 
at  last  beaten  and  from  that  time  forward  the  colony 
remained  at  peace. 

At  first  the  whole  of  Carolina  was  regarded  as  a 
D 


50  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

single  province  and  was  owned  by  a  single  set  of 
proprietors  in  England.  Because  of  the  great  ex 
tent  of  the  province,  however,  the  proprietors  almost 
from  the  first  governed  the  northern  and  southern 
portions  separately,  under  different  agents  of  their 
own.  They  governed  very  badly  and  from  the  be 
ginning  there  was  constant  discontent  with  their  rule 
among  the  South  Carolina  colonists.  These  were 
almost  always  engaged  in  a  quarrel  of  some  kind 
with  the  proprietors  because  of  their  arbitrary  meas 
ures,  most  of  which  of  course  were  inspired  by  the 
complete  ignorance  which  prevailed  in  London  as 
to  the  conditions  and  needs  of  the  colony  in  Amer 
ica. 

At  last,  in  1719,  the  South  Carolina  colonists 
became  so  angry  with  their  foreign  proprietary  rulers 
that  they  went  into  something  like  rebellion.  They 
appealed  to  the  king  in  that  year  and  asked  him  to 
take  the  government  of  the  colony  away  from  the 
English  company  and  to  assume  control  himself, 
making  of  South  Carolina  a  royal  province.  After 
two  years  of  controversy  with  the  proprietors  the 
king  bought  out  their  interests  and  sent  over  a 
royal  governor  to  take  control  of  the  colony  in  his 
name. 

This  purchase  afterward  included  the  rights  of  the 


LIFE  IN  GEORGIA  AND  CAROLINAS    51 

proprietors  in  both  halves  of  the  Carolina  province 
and  the  king  divided  them  into  two  colonies,  North 
and  South  Carolina.  South  Carolina  became  a 
royal  province  at  once,  and  in  1729  North  Carolina 
also  was  placed  under  a  royal  governor. 


CHAPTER  V 

FURTHER    WARS    OF   COLONISTS 

DURING  the  colonial  period  in  America,  Eng 
land,  France,  and  Spain  were  almost  continu 
ally  at  war  one  with  the  other.  It  was  a  period 
in  which  dissension  was  rife  and  there  was  always  a 
cause  for  war  ready  at  hand  when  any  monarch  had  a 
fancy  for  that  sort  of  employment  of  his  revenues  and 
his  people.  The  interests  of  trade  had  not  yet  as 
serted  themselves.  Men  had  not  yet  learned  the  les 
son  they  have  learned  in  our  later  day,  that  war  is  al 
ways  a  costly  indulgence  and  that  it  always  ends  in  loss 
for  both  the  nations  engaged  in  it.  They  had  not 
yet  learned  that  it  is  better  for  nations  to  trade  with 
each  other  than  to  fight  each  other.  They  had  not 
yet  learned  even  the  primer  lessons  of  political 
economy. 

So  in  1739  England  and  Spain  went  to  war  again. 
As  we  have  seen,  General  Oglethorpe  had  established 
his    military  colony  in  Georgia  with  a  primary  pur 
pose  of  fighting   the   Spaniards  and   defending  the 
52 


FURTHER  WARS  OF  COLONISTS        53 


Gateway  at  St.  Augustine,  Fla. 


54  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Carolinas  against  them.  Accordingly  he  embraced 
this  opportunity  to  send  an  expedition  into  Florida. 
His  movement  was  successful  for  a  time  but  after 
awhile  he  found  himself  overmatched  and  withdrew 
his  forces.  A  few  months  later  he  led  a  second  ex 
pedition  into  Florida  and  hammered  for.  awhile  at 
the  gates  of  St.  Augustine.  The  Spaniards  proved 
to  be  too  strongly  entrenched  for  him  to  conquer 
them  and  so  at  last  he  withdrew. 

In  1742  the  Spaniards  in  their  turn  took  the  of 
fensive  and  invaded  Georgia  with  the  purpose  of  re 
conquering  that  region  and  making  it  again  part  of 
their  Florida  possessions.  Their  forces  outnumbered 
Oglethorpe's  and  their  resources  were  far  greater  than 
his.  But  Oglethorpe  was  a  man  of  large  ability  and 
great  skill  in  manceuvering.  He  succeeded  in  am 
bushing  the  Spaniards  and  routing  them.  His  suc 
cesses  in  this  way  practically  ended  the  war,  so  far 
as  the  American  possessions  were  concerned,  and 
permanently  secured  Georgia  to  the  English. 

Two  years  later,  in  1744,  there  came  a  war  be 
tween  France  and  England.  This  war  is  known 
in  history  as  King  George's  War  and  it  resulted  in 
a  good  deal  of  trouble  for  the  northern  colonies  in 
America. 

The  first  effort  of  the  French  in  America  was  to 


FURTHER  WARS  OF  COLONISTS        55 


retake  Annapolis   Royal,  which  had  formerly  been 
called  Port  Royal,  in  Acadia.     There  was  a  resolute 
man  at  the  head  of  the  government  of  Massachusetts, 
at  that  time — Governor  Shirley — and  he  determined 
from  the   first  not  only  to   defend  Nova    Scotia  but 
to  take   the  aggressive  and,  if  possible,  conquer  the 
great  French  fortress  on  Cape  Breton  Is 
land,  called  Louisburg.     With  the  single 
exception  of  Quebec,  Louisburg  was   the 
very  strongest  French  fortress  in  America. 
The  possession  of  that  place  by  the  French 
was  a  special  menace  to  the  New  England 
colonies  for  the  reason  that  French  priva 
teer  ships  in  great  numbers  were  sent  out 
from   the   harbor   of    Louisburg  to   prey 
upon  the  commerce  of  the  New  England- 
ers.     These  privateers   were   little   better 
than  pirates.     Their  business  was  to  cap 
ture   merchant  ships   and  make  spoil  of     A  French 
them   and  of  their  cargoes.      But  at  that       re§ular- 
time  this  modified  species  of  piracy  was  still  every 
where  recognized  as  a  legitimate  agency  in  war. 

The  operations  of  these  privateers  seriously  in 
terfered  not  only  with  the  fishing  industries  of  New 
England  but  with  the  commerce  of  that  region  with 
other  countries  of  the  world.  Wherever  a  Yankee 


56  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

ship  was  found  at  sea,  and  a  French  privateer  could 
conquer  and  capture  it,  the  ship  and  its  cargo  be 
came  a  prize,  and  its  officers  and  crew  prisoners  of 
war. 

Governor  Shirley's  idea  was  to  defend  New 
England  by  an  offensive  movement  against  Louis- 
burg.  If  he  could  capture  the  fortress  there  and 
break  up  this  nest  of  quasi-pirates  he  would  thereby 
do  more  for  the  defence  of  New  England  against 
the  French  than  could  be  done  by  any  number  of 
successes  on  land. 


Old  house  at  Deerfield. 


The  New  England  boys  and  young  men,  trained 
as  they  were  to  sea  service,  and  full  as  they  were  of 
spirit,  volunteered  for  this  service  as  freely  as  their 
governor  desired.  After  a  little  Governor  Shirley 


FURTHER  WARS  OF  COLONISTS        57 

got  together  a  fleet  of  transports  loaded  with  soldiers 
ready  for  action,  together  with  another  fleet  of  armed 
vessels  whose  duty  it  was  to  protect  the  transports. 
Thus  equipped  he  sent  his  force,  under  command 
of  Pepperell,  to  besiege  Louisburg  and  after  a  six 
weeks'  struggle  they  captured  that  stronghold  on 
the  iyth  of  June,  1745. 

The  news  of  this  victory  was  received  everywhere 
in  New  England  and  equally  in  the  southern  colonies 
with  rejoicing.  It  was  clearly  seen  that  this  cap 
ture  of  Louisburg  practically  made  an  end  of  the 
power  of  the  French  in  Canada  to  harass  the  coasts 
or  the  shipping  of  the  English  colonies.  It  was 
clearly  seen  that  with  Louisburg  in  possession  the 
Yankees  were  masters  of  the  situation  and  of  the 
sea. 

But  three  years  later,  when  England  and  France 
concluded  to  make  a  peace  with  each  other,  the  in 
terests  of  the  colonists  were  utterly  disregarded,  as 
they  had  been  many  times  before,  and  the  English 
gave  Louisburg  back  to  the  French,  thus  reestablish 
ing  north  of  the  New  England  colonies  a  hornet's 
nest  of  aggression  and  depredation. 

If  we  would  understand  the  history  of  that  time 
we  must  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  the  wars  be 
tween  England  and  France  were  undertaken  solely 


58  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

for  purposes  relating  to  European  difficulties.  -We 
must  remember  that  in  England  the  American 
colonies  were  considered  as  outlying  settlements  of 
no  consequence  whatever,  whose  most  vital  interests 
might  be  freely  sacrificed  in  an  effort  to  secure  good 
terms  between  France  and  England  with  regard  to 
European  matters. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  if  the  English 
had  not  given  up  Louisburg  after  the 
colonists  had  conquered  it,  the  colo 
nists  would  have  been  spared  the 
greatest  and  most  dangerous  war  in 
which  they  were  at  any  time  engaged 
and  would  have  had  comparatively 
little  difficulty  in  destroying  the 
French  power  and  establishing  Eng 
lish  dominion  west  of  the  Alleghen- 
ies. 

It  was  inevitable  that  able  men  in  the  colonies 
should  see  and  understand  these  conditions.  And 
their  seeing  and  understanding  of  such  conditions  in 
evitably  led  their  minds  to  question  the  wisdom  and 
the  value  of  English  dominion  in  the  colonies.  In 
other  words,  the  better  minds  among  the  men  who 
had  created  an  English  nation  in  America  were  forced 
to  ask  themselves  from  time  to  time  whether  it  might 


A  French 
officer. 


FURTHER  WARS  OF  COLONISTS        59 

not  be  desirable  to  sever  the  relations  that  bound 
them  to  the  parent  country.  They  got  little  if 
anything  of  advantage  from  that  relation.  They  got 
much  of  disadvantage  from  it,  especially  in  such  cases 
as  this.  By  their  energy  and  valor  they  had  won 
possession  of  a  fortress  which  constituted  the  key 
of  the  situation.  They  had  made  themselves  in 
deed  masters  of  the  problem  that  lay  before  them 
— the  problem  of  English  competition  with  French 
enterprise  on  this  continent.  It  was  not  only  a 
humiliation  to  them,  but  also  a  grievance  of  the 
most  extreme  kind  that  a  power  essentially  foreign 
to  themselves  and  indifferent  to  their  interests  should, 
for  its  own  trading  purposes,  give  up  all  that  they 
had  won  by  sacrifice  and  courage,  and  relegate  them 
again  to  a  position  of  helplessness  and  constant 
danger. 

But  the  thought  of  independence  was  not  yet  born 
among  the  people  generally  in  America.  The  men 
who  suffered  this  and  other  wrongs  for  nearly  a 
generation  afterward  were  too  loyal  to  the  crown  to 
think  as  yet  of  the  only  remedy  that  was  possible — 
namely,  the  remedy  of  independence.  They  were 
still  disposed  to  "suffer  and  be  strong"  in  their 
loyalty  to  England.  But  their  wrongs  were  slowly 
driving  them  toward  this  thought  of  revolt,  which 


60  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

culminated  at  last  in  the  American  Revolution.  It 
is  interesting  to  trace  the  birth  and  growth  of  this 
sentiment  as  a  natural  human  protest  against  injustice. 
That  is  what  the  American  Revolution,  when  it  came, 
was  and  meant. 

The  colonies  had  been  grievously  oppressed  for 
years  before  they  went  into  revolt.  They  had  en 
dured  all  with  a  patience  which  is  positively  astonish 
ing  to  us  in  this  later  time.  But  they  remained 
loyal  to  the  mother  country  till  they  were  at  last 
fairly  driven  into  a  revolution  which  they  had  strug 
gled  to  avoid. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FIRST    INDEPENDENT    COLONIAL    WAR 

THUS   far  the   English  settlements  lay  almost 
entirely  east  of  the  Allegheny  mountains.     A 
rich   territory   lay   beyond   into   which    it   was 
quite  inevitable  that  the  enterprising  colonists  should 
wish  to  push  their  way. 

In  the  very  year  (1748),  in  which  King  George's 
War  ended,  a  company  was  formed  in  Virginia  to 
make  settlements  beyond  the  mountains  in  what  was 
then  known  as  the  Ohio  country — namely,  the  re 
gion  lying  along  the  upper  waters  of  the  Ohio  and 
now  included  in  Ohio,  Kentucky,  West  Virginia 
and  Indiana.  All  that  region  was  claimed  by  Vir 
ginia  as  a  part  of  her  territory.  It  was  Virginia, 
therefore,  under  authority  of  the  king,  which  granted 
to  the  Ohio  Company  five  hundred  thousand  acres 
of  land  on  the  Ohio  River.  It  was  stipulated 
in  the  grant  that  the  company  should  settle  not  less 
than  one  hundred  families  upon  its  lands  within 
seven  years.  Two  years  later  (1750),  one  Christo- 

61 


62  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

pher  Gist,  a  man  expert  in  such  matters,  was  sent 
out  to  explore  the  country  and  select  localities  for 
the  settlements  that  were  to  be  made. 

But  all  this  country  was  claimed  also  by  the 
French,  and  they  were  not  disposed  to  permit  emi 
grants  from  the  English  colonies  to 
settle  there.  Accordingly,  in  1749, 
the  French  Governor  of  Canada  sent 
an  expedition  into  the  Ohio  Valley 
which  consisted  of  soldiers  and  In 
dians.  The  people  composing  this  ex 
pedition  went  from  Canada  to  the 
Allegheny  River  and  thence  down  the 
Ohio.  They  carried  a  number  of 
leaden  plates,  on  each  of  which  was 
an  inscription  claiming  all  the  region 
watered  by  the  Ohio  and  its  tributaries.  These 
plates  were  buried  in  the  earth  at  various  points 
near  the  mouths  of  streams  tributary  to  the  Ohio. 
The  last  of  them  was  buried  near  the  present  site  of 
Cincinnati. 

All  this,  of  course,  was  a  ridiculous  technicality, 
which  the  sturdy  Virginians  were  not  disposed  to 
recognize  as  in  any  way  binding  upon  themselves. 
They  were  resolute  in  their  determination  to  cross 
the  mountains  and  settle  in  the  Ohio  country,  which 


A  Canadian 
soldier. 


FIRST  INDEPENDENT  COLONIAL  WAR  63 

they    claimed,     without    the  formality    of  burying 
leaden  plates  anywhere. 

It  was  an  age  of  technicalities  and  the  French  es 
pecially  were  technical  in  their  proceedings.  La 
Salle,  in  1682,  had  set  up  a  monument  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  River  claiming,  for  the  French 
king,  dominion  over  all  the  region  watered  by  that 
river  and  all  its  tributaries;  and  the  French  insisted 
upon  the  validity  of  that  slenderly  founded  claim. 

The  English  colonists  in  Virginia  and  in  the  re 
gion  south  of  Virginia  were  far  less  disposed  to  re 
spect  technicalities  of  this  kind.     They 
held  that  by  virtue  of  Cabot's  discov 
eries,  the  English  owned  all  that  region, 
from  sea  to  sea,  and  that  by  virtue  of 
kingly  grants  to  the  English  colonies 

*• .     ^ .         ~      ' 

these  colonies  had  a  right   to   control 

Block  house. 

and  occupy  the  whole  of  it. 

The  French  governor  of  Canada,  Duquesne,  pres 
ently  recognized  this  disposition  of  the  English  and 
took  more  active  means  than  the  burying  of  plates,, 
by  way  of  securing  French  possession  of  the  region 
in  dispute.  In  1753  he  sent  out  an  expedition  and 
established  military  posts  and  built  forts  in  the  Ohio 
Valley  and  in  the  region  between  Canada  and  that 
valley.  The  men  in  charge  of  this  expedition  built  a 


64  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

fort  where  Erie  in  Pennsylvania  now  stands,  and  an 
other  on  the  present  site  of  Waterford  in  Pennsyl 
vania.  Further  west  they  seized  upon  the  house  of 
an  English  trader  and  converted  it  into  a  French 
fort. 

At  that  point,  Governor  Dinwiddie,  of  Virginia, 
decided  to  interfere  with  the  proceedings  of  the 
French.  He  called  to  his  assistance,  and  sent  out  as 
his  representative,  a  very  enterprising  and  daring 
young  man,  named  George  Washington,  who  was 
only  twenty-one  years  of  age,  but  who  knew  by  long 
experience  how  to  live  in  the  woods  and  the  wil 
derness  and  how  to  conduct  a  perilous  expedition  to 
a  successful  conclusion.  He  gave  young  Washing 
ton  a  letter  of  remonstrance  which  he  charged  him 
to  deliver  to  the  French  commander  in  the  Ohio 
country. 

It  was  November  when  Washington  set  out 
upon  this  journey  of  hardship  and  extreme  danger. 
He  had  with  him  two  Indians  and  four  white  hunt 
ers  who,  like  himself,  knew  how  to  live  in  the  woods. 
There  were  no  supplies  to  be  had  upon  the  journey, 
except  such  as  the  woodlands  might  furnish,  and  the 
party  must  therefore  carry  with  it  its  own  food  and 
everything  else  that  it  needed. 

On  the  way,  Washington    encountered    Indians 


FIRST  INDEPENDENT   COLONIAL  WAR  65 


66  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

who  were  hostile  to  the  English  by  reason  of  French 
influence,  but  his  tact  was  sufficient  to  allay  their 
hostility  and  to  induce  their  chief  to  go  with  him  to 
Fort  Le  Boeuf,  near  Lake  Erie.  There  he  delivered 
to  the  French  commandant  the  letter  of  remonstrance 
from  Governor  Dinwiddie  and  after  a  day  or  two  of 
delay  he  received  a  letter  in  reply.  This  was  a  sim 
ple  declaration  that  the  French  commander  claimed 
French  possession  of  all  the  region  west  of  the  moun 
tains  and  that  he  declined  to  recognize  any  English 
right  of  settlement  there. 

With  this  reply  in  hand  Washington  set  out  in 
midwinter  to  return  to  Virginia. 

He  soon  found  it  impossible,  by  reason  of  the 
condition  of  the  snow  and  the  soil,  to  go  farther  on 
horseback.  He  therefore  left  his  party  behind  him 
and  with  only  one  companion — the  hardy  frontiers 
man  Christopher  Gist — he  set  out  on  foot  to  march 
all  the  way  to  Virginia  without  even  the  aid  of  pack 
horses,  without  any  cooking  utensils,  and  with  only 
such  food  as  these  two  young  men  could  carry  on 
their  persons. 

They  were  beset  by  hostile  Indians,  tortured  by 
cold,  and  continually  threatened  with  starvation. 
Still  they  persisted  in  their  purpose  and  hurrying  for 
ward  under  threat  of  Indian  massacre,  crossing  rivers 


FIRST  INDEPENDENT  COLONIAL  WAR  67 

full  of  floating  ice,  upon  rudely  constructed  rafts  and 
often  falling  into  the  freezing  water,  they  managed 
at  last — after  Gist's  feet  and  hands  were  terribly 
frozen — to  make  their  way  back  again  to  Virginia. 

Washington's  personal  reward  for  this  splendid 
service  was  his  appointment — mere  boy  that  he  was 
— to  be  Commander-in-chief  of  all  the  forces  in 
Virginia  which  it  was  the  Governor's  purpose  to  send 
into  the  Ohio  country  to  assert  and  maintain  Vir 
ginia's  rights  there. 

In  all  these  colonial  wars  the  Americans  had  only 
rudely  undisciplined  forces,  while  the  French  had 
for  their  service  the  best  trained  regular  troops  of  a 
great  military  power.  The  American  forces  con 
sisted  in  part  of  volunteers,  brave  fellows  who  fought 
well  when  they  saw  opportunity  of  winning,  but  who 
were  subject  to  no  discipline  and  who  had  never 
been  trained  in  the  art  of  war.  They  considered 
only  immediate  necessity,  and  when  the  foe  was 
driven  away  from  their  own  settlements  they  quitted 
the  field  and  went  home.  The  rest  of  the  forces 
consisted  of  militiamen,  called  into  service  only  un 
der  pressure  of  necessity.  They  too  were  disban 
ded  and  sent  home  as  soon  as  their  local  work  of  war 
was  done. 

There  was  never  any  organized  supply  depart- 


68  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

ment.  The  forces  depended  for  subsistence  upon 
what  they  could  gather  in  the  region  round  about 
them. 

It  was  not  until  the  time  of  the  Revolution  that 
the  regular  forces,  known  as  "  continentals,"  were 
organized. 

The  arms  in  use  by  the  militia  and  volunteers 
were  clumsy,  muzzle-loading,  flintlock  guns  of  short 

range  and  inaccurate  fire. 
The  few  field  cannon  were 
little  three  or  six  pounders, 
which  could  do  no  effective 
execution. 

Washington     had     in     the 
A  flintlock.  meantime   acquired  a  mastery 

of  the  geographic  and  military  situation  which  en 
abled  him  to  point  out  at  once  the  true  policy  of 
Virginia  in  the  war  which  was  obviously  impending. 
He  saw  clearly,  as  nobody  else  had  seen,  up  to  that 
time,  that  the  key  to  the  Ohio  country  was  that 
point  at  which  the  junction  of  smaller  rivers  formed 
the  Ohio — the  point  where  Pittsburg  now  stands. 
He  immediately  urged  upon  Governor  Dinwiddie 
the  importance  of  sending  an  expedition  thither  to 
build  a  fort  there  to  defend  that  commanding  po 
sition. 


FIRST  INDEPENDENT  COLONIAL  WAR  69 

His  advice  was  accepted  and  acted  upon.  An 
enterprising  trader  named  William  Trent  was  directed 
to  raise  a  force  of  frontiersmen,  to  advance  into  the 
Ohio  country,  and  to  build  a  fort  at  the  forks  of  the 
river.  Trent  promptly  began  the  work,  but  two 
months  later  a  French  force,  numbering  about  five 
hundred  men,  descended  suddenly  upon  him  and 
drove  his  little  company  of  forty  men  away.  The 


Fort  Duquesne. 

French  by  this  time  had  grasped  Washington's  idea 
and  realized  the  strategic  value  of  that  position. 
They  proceeded  at  once  to  build  a  very  strong  fort 
there  which  they  called  Fort  Duquesne. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  young  Commander-in-chief, 
George  Washington,  was  sent  out  to  assist  Trent  in 
building  and  defending  the  fort.  Washington  had 
with  him  a  very  small  force,  but  while  on  his  way 


70  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

he  learned  that  Trent  had  been  defeated  and  driven 
away  from  the  position  he  had  been  ordered  to  oc 
cupy.  Washington  therefore  gave  up  the  immedi 
ate  purpose  of  his  expedition  and  advanced  to  a 
point  about  forty  miles  east  of  Fort  Duquesne  where 
the  Ohio  Company  had  established  a  storehouse. 
It  was  his  purpose  to  fortify  himself  there  and  hoid 
the  position  until  reinforcements  could  come  to  him, 
after  which  he  hoped  to  drive  the  French  out  of  Fort 
Duquesne. 

It  took  him  fully  two  weeks  to  make  this  march, 
inasmuch  as  he  had  to  cut  a  road  through  a  very 
dense  forest  in  order  to  carry  his  artillery  and  his 
wagons  with  him.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he  ar 
rived  at  a  place  called  Great  Meadows.  There  he 
learned  that  some  French  soldiers  were  lurking  sus 
piciously  within  striking  distance  of  his  camp.  Tak 
ing  forty  men  with  him  he  set  out  to  find  these 
Frenchmen  and  learn  what  their  purpose  was.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  was  at  this  time 
no  war  between  England  and  France  and,  therefore, 
that  the  English  and  French  on  the  American  con 
tinent  were  forbidden  by  their  home  governments, 
to  make  war  upon  each  other.  But  when  Washing 
ton  appeared  in  the  presence  of  the  French  soldiers, 
they  assailed  him  quite  as  if  war  had  been  on,  and  a 


FIRST  INDEPENDENT  COLONIAL  WAR  71 

sharp  fight  ensued.  Ten  of  the  Frenchmen  were 
killed  and  twenty-two  of  them  were  captured. 

This  was  on  the  28th  day  of  May,  1754,  and  it 
was  the  beginning  of  what  is  known  in  history  as  the 
Great  French  and  Indian  Wan 

Now  that  war  was  on,  Washington  saw  that  his 
little  force  was  in  serious  danger  of  capture  or  de 
struction.  The  French  had  forces  enough  within 
easy  march  of  Great  Meadows  to  overwhelm  him 
completely.  He  set  to  work  to  defend  himself  as 
best  he  could  by  erecting  a  palisade  and  other  de 
fences  and  he  sent  couriers  back  to  hurry  up  rein 
forcements.  He  called  his  position  Fort  Necessity, 
for  the  reason  that  he  was  there  only  through  neces 
sity  and  not  through  choice.  Unfortunately  the 
reinforcements  with  which  he  had  hoped  to  defend 
that  position  were  lost  to  him  by  the  death  of  their 
commander,  Colonel  Fry.  They  turned  back 
and  thus  Washington  was  left  with  scarcely  more 
than  three  hundred  men,  all  told,  with  whose  aid 
to  defend  himself  against  the  much  greater  numbers 
of  French  and  Indians  who  presently  assailed  him. 

In  spite  of  the  odds  against  him  he  fought  for  nine 
hours  before  surrendering,  and  when  he  surrendered 
he  was  still  strong  enough  to  exact  good  terms.  It 
is  to  be  noted  that  this  was  the  only  occasion  in  all 


72  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

George  Washington's  life  on  which  he  made  any 
surrender  whatever,  although  he  was  often  confronted 
with  enormously  superior  forces  in  positions,  the  na 
ture  of  which  would  have  prompted  any  lesser  man 
to  make  terms  with  the  enemy. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE     PROBLEM     OF     THE     COLONIES BRADDOCK.'s 

BLUNDER 

NOW  for  the  first  time  in  their  history  the  Eng 
lish  colonists   were   engaged  in  war  on  their 
own  account  against  their  French  neighbors, 
without    waiting  for   permission    from    the    mother 
country. 

The  English  colonists  vastly  outnumbered  the 
French  in  America.  The  French  had  enormously 
extended  their  posts,  both  of  a  military  and  of  a 
trading  sort,  and  had  occupied  an  area  of  country 
many  times  greater  than  that  held  by  the  English, 
but  their  population  on  this  continent  was  scarcely 
one  tenth  as  great  as  that  of  the  English  colonists. 
If  the  English  colonies  had  at  that  time  been  acting 
together  as  a  unit  their  mastery  of  the  situation  would 
have  been  complete.  They  could  have  organized 
armies  overwhelmingly  superior  to  any  that  the 
French  could  bring  to  bear,  and  with  their  alliance 
with  the  Iroquois  Six  Nations  they  could  have  put 
more  Indians  into  the  field  than  the  French  could 

73 


74  LIFE  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

possibly  win  to  their  service.  But  unhappily  the 
colonies  were  in  no  way  united.  Each  of  them  was 
as  yet  separated  from  all  the  rest  and  independent 
of  all  the  rest.  Each  of  them  was  looking  out  for 
its  own  interests  and  caring  next  to  nothing  for 
what  might  happen  to  sister  colonies  anywhere. 

In  1754,  one  of  the 
wisest  men  in  all 
America,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  clearly  saw 
the  danger  of  this  sit 
uation  and  made  an 
earnest  effort  to  meet 
it.  He  saw  that  the 
isolation  of  the  colo 
nies  from  each  other 
left  each  of  them  in 

Indian  fur  trader.  some    degree     helpless 

in  the  presence  of  any  foe  who  might  assail  it,  while 
if  they  had  been  united  and  acting  together  their  de 
fensive  power  would  have  been  sufficient  to  enable 
them  to  defy  any  enemy  that  might  threaten  them. 
In  the  year  mentioned  a  convention  of  represen 
tatives  from  the  several  colonies  was  held  at  Albany 
in  New  York.  The  purpose  of  that  convention 
was  to  make  a  treaty  with  the  Iroquois  Indians  which 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  COLONIES  75 

should  ally  them  not  only  with  New  York  but  with 
all  the  English  colonies  in  America.  Incidentally 
the  delegates  consulted  a  good  deal  with  reference 
to  a  plan,  which  Franklin  submitted,  for  a  permanent 
union  of  the  colonies.  His  idea  was  to  make  of 
them,  so  far  as  external  affairs  were  concerned,  and 
particularly  so  far  as  defence  against  enemies  was 
concerned,  a  single  unit  acting  together  for  the  com 
mon  good. 

Franklin's  proposal  amounted  to  this,  that  the 
several  colonies  should  form  themselves  into  a  union 
for  defence,  creating  a  general  government  with 
power  to  conduct  all  affairs  that  concerned  the  col 
onies  generally,  and  particularly  all  wars  that  might 
threaten  any  of  them  ;  and  which  should  have  power 
also  to  raise  by  taxation  the  money  necessary  for 
this  purpose.  He  proposed  to  leave  each  colony 
free  to  manage  its  own  affairs  in  all  local  concerns, 
just  as  the  states  of  the  union  are  now  left  free,  while 
their  general  government  cares  for  all  matters  of 
common  interest  and  particularly  for  all  matters  of 
external  policy. 

In  substance  Franklin's  plan  was  closely  akin  to 
that  which  many  years  later  was  adopted  in  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  of  America.  But  -the 
time  was  not  yet  ripe.  The  colonies  were  still 


76  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

jealous  of  each  other  and  still  jealous  of  their  indi 
vidual  rights  and  interests.  They  continued  to  be 
so  until  long  after  the  Revolutionary  War  was  fought 
and  won. 

Franklin's  plan  was  approved  by  the  convention 
and  presented  to  the  several  colonies  for  acceptance, 
but  the  majority  of  them  unwisely  rejected  it,  as  the 
English  government  also  did.  The  colonies  thought 
it  gave  too  much  of  prerogative  to  the  English  king, 
while  the  English  government  held  that  it  gave  too 
much  independence  and  democratic  power  to  the 
colonists.  As  a  consequence  the  colonies  were  left, 
each  of  them  to  fight  out  for  itself  this  great  French 
and  Indian  war  which  about  that  time  fell  upon 
them. 

As  Virginia  could  not  call  upon  the  other  colonies 
to  assist  her  in  her  effort  to  conquer  the  Ohio  country 
and  to  assert  the  right  of  the  English  to  possession 
there,  Governor  Dinwiddie  was  forced  to  appeal  to 
England  for  aid,  in  an  enterprise  which  had  in  no 
way  been  authorized  by  the  English  government  and 
which  was  undertaken  in  fact  almost  as  a  revolt 
against  it.  Yet  the  English  government,  in  1755, 
sent  out  General  Braddock,  a  very  capable  officer, 
but  a  very  arrogant  and  unteachable  one,  with  a 
thousand  men  to  help  the  Virginians. 


BRADDOCK'S  BLUNDER 


77 


In  one  respect  Braddock  succeeded.  He  induced 
the  colonies  to  act  together  in  a  war  which  threatened 
the  destruction  of  all  of  them.  He  called  a  council 
of  their  governors  and  induced  them  to  agree  upon 
a  united  plan  of  campaign  against  the  enemy. 

This  plan  was  to  assail  the  French  at  several  dif 
ferent  points  simultaneously.  Governor  Shirley  of 


Line  of  Braddock' s  march. 

Massachusetts  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  organ 
izing  expeditions,  composed  of  New  England  and 
New  York  volunteers,  against  Acadia,  Crown  Point 
and  Niagara.  In  the  meanwhile  General  Braddock, 
with  his  thousand  British  regulars  supported  by  a 
still  greater  number  of  Virginian  volunteers,  was  to 
march  against  Fort  Duquesne. 


78  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Braddock  had  a  very  long  and  difficult  march  to 
make  over  mountains  and  through  woodlands  where 
there  were  no  roads,  and  across  streams  that  were 
bridgeless.  At  the  outset  he  encountered  as  his 
chief  difficulty  the  lack  of  horses  and  wagons.  Ap 
parently  none  could  be  had  for  love  or  money,  but 
this  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  fact  that  Braddock  did 
not  know  how  to  set  to  work  to  secure  what  he 
wanted  from  the  colonists. 

Then  Franklin  came  to  his  aid  and  issued  a  call 
upon  the  farmers  everywhere,  from  Pennsylvania  to 
Virginia,  to  send  in  their  wagons  and  horses  for  the 
use  of  the  army.  He,  himself,  undertook  to  see 
that  the  horses  and  wagons  should  be  paid  for  at 
rates  which  he  published.  The  response  was 
prompt  and  Franklin  spent  a  small  fortune  of  his 
own  money — because  there  was  no  money  in  the 
army  chest — in  purchasing  the  needed  horses  and 
wagons.  It  was  an  act  on  his  part  of  great  self- 
sacrifice  in  behalf  of  the  country,  but  when,  later,  he 
presented  to  the  British  authorities  his  bill  for  this 
expenditure  of  his  private  means,  the  officer  who 
had  charge  of  the  matter  immediately  proposed  to 
cut  the  bill  in  two,  paying  Franklin  only  one  half 
of  his  demand.  Franklin  dignifiedly  told  him  that 
his  demand  included  not  one  dollar  more  than  he 


BRADDOCK'S  BLUNDER  79 

had  expended  in  the  public  behalf  and  that  he 
thought  it  should  be  paid  in  full.  With  something 
like  a  wink  the  officer  replied  : 

"  Oh,  well,  of  course  we  know  how  these  things 
are  done.  Of  course  you  got  something  for  your 
self  out  of  it.'* 

The  result  was  that  Franklin  got  back  only  about 
one  half  the  money  he  had  expended,  but  in  his 
wonderful  autobiography  he  manifests  an  amusement 
over  the  occurrence  which  perhaps  compensated  him 
almost  as  completely  as  the  money  would  have 
done. 

Braddock  profited  also  by  George  Washington's 
self-sacrifice  in  behalf  of  the  public  interest.  He 
welcomed  Washington's  offer  of  service  on  his  staff 
as  an  unpaid  aid-de-camp.  It  is  an  interesting  fact 
that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career 
George  Washington  never  accepted  one  dollar  of 
pay  or  of  subsequent  reward  for  any  service  ren 
dered  to  his  country  whether  as  a  military  officer,  as 
president  of  the  Convention  that  framed  the  Con 
stitution,  or  as  President  of  the  United  States  for 
eight  years. 

Washington  did  all  he  could  to  inform  Braddock 
of  the  methods  of  Indian  warfare — methods  with 
which  he  was  himself  thoroughly  familiar.  He  ex- 


80  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

plained  to  Braddock  how  the  Indians  fought  irregu 
larly,  shooting  from  behind  trees  and  other  natural 
defences,  and  how  impossible  it  was  for  troops 
formed  in  solid  lines  to  combat  with  them.  Brad- 
dock  would  not  hear.  It  was  not  for  him,  a  thor 
oughly  instructed  British  officer,  to  accept  advice 
or  information  from  a  mere  colonial  like  Washing 
ton.  He  insisted  therefore  upon  advancing  and 
fighting  according  to  the  rules  of  tactics  accepted 
and  acted  upon  in  European  warfare.  Very  natur 
ally  he  brought  disaster  upon  himself. 

When  within  a  few  miles  of  the  fort  that  he  meant 
to  assail,  Braddock  was  met  (July  9,  1755)  by  a  force 
of  French  and  Indians  concealed  behind  trees  and  fir 
ing  vigorously  from  their  cover.  He  still  insisted 
upon  keeping  his  men  in  regular  ranks  where  they 
were  easy  marks  for  the  enemy's  riflemen.  One  after 
another  of  them  went  down  like  grass  before  a  scythe 
and  presently  they  fell  into  a  panic  and  refused  to 
be  rallied  by  the  utmost  efforts  that  their  officers 
could  make.  The  English  regulars  simply  broke 
ranks  and  ran  away.  They  would  have  been  utterly 
destroyed  but  for  the  courage  and  sagacity  of  Wash 
ington  and  his  Virginians.  He  and  his  Virginians 
knew  how  to  fight  Indians  and  they  had  all  of  res 
olution  that  was  necessary  to  protect  this  retreat  of 


BRADDOCK'S  BLUNDER 


81 


the  British  regulars.  They  betook  themselves  to 
trees  as  the  Indians  were  accustomed  to  do,  and 
fought  desperately  there  until  the  retreat  was  ac 
complished.  More  than  half  of  General  Braddock's 
regulars  were  killed  or  wounded 
and  General  Braddock  himself 
was  pierced  with  a  bullet  that 
was  destined  to  end  his  life. 

During  all  this  time  Wash 
ington  exposed  himself  reck 
lessly  upon  horseback  and  twice 
during  the  mcl^e  his  horse  was 
killed  under  him.  Four  bullets 
pierced  his  clothing,  but  he  es 
caped  unhurt  and  in  the  end 
succeeded  in  covering  Brad- 
dock's  retreat  so  as  to  save  it 


from   becoming  a  complete  dis-     The  situation  of  Crown 

Point. 

aster. 

The  expeditions  against  Crown  Point,  a  French  fort 
on  Lake  Champlain,  and  against  Niagara,  were  com 
plete  failures.  Sir  William  Johnson  led  the  first  but 
got  no  further  toward  Crown  Point  than  the  south 
ern  end  of  Lake  George.  There  he  was  attacked  by 
Baron  Dieskau  whom  he  repulsed.  But  he  lacked 
either  the  force,  or  the  courage,  or  the  enterprise,  to 
F 


82  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

follow  up  his  victory  and  so  his  expedition  ended  in 
nothing.  Governor  Shirley,  in  person,  led  an  ex 
pedition  against  Niagara  but  he  also  made  a  complete 
failure  of  the  enterprise. 

Thus  the  campaign  planned  by  Braddock  in  con 
sultation  with  the  governors  of 
the  colonies  produced  absolutely 
no  results  of  value  to  the  Eng 
lish,  except  that  it  showed  them 
the  necessity  of  acting  together 
in  a  common  cause  against  a 
common  enemy. 

But  the  war  was  still  young 
and  the  English  colonists  were 
determined  to  win  it.  How 
their  courage  and  their  determination  were  rewarded 
later  we  shall  see  in  another  chapter. 

In  the  meanwhile  one  of  the  most  picturesque  in 
cidents  in  American  history  had  happened.  As  we 
remember,  the  whole  French  province  of  Acadia 
had  been  taken  by  the  English  and  the  colonists  in 
1710,  and  made  an  English  province.  The  Aca- 
dians  were  mainly  peasants,  living  a  simple  life, 
which  Longfellow  has  beautifully  described  in  his 
poem,  "  Evangeline."  But  although  they  were  now 
made  British  subjects  they  remained  loyal  in  their 


Sir  William  Johnson. 


BRADDOCK'S  BLUNDER  83 

hearts  to  the  French  government,  under  whose  aus 
pices  they  had  built  up  their  little  homes  and  estab 
lished  their  very  simple  life  in  America.  Almost 
all  of  them  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  as 
British  subjects  when  war  came  on  again  in  the 
middle  of  the  century.  Their  presence  in  Acadia 
was  regarded  by  the  English  and  the  colonists  as  a 
danger,  for  the  reason  that  they  were  always  ready 
to  take  up  arms  if  necessary  against  the  English. 
A  decree  was  therefore  issued  in  1755,  that  they 
should  be  removed  from  Acadia  and  scattered 
through  the  various  English  colonies  where  they 
could  do  no  harm. 

There  were  about  six  thousand  of  these  simple, 
ignorant  peasant  people  and  they  were  forcibly  com 
pelled  to  go  on  board  English  vessels  and  to  be 
sent  away  from  the  homes  that  they  had  laboriously 
created  in  the  American  wilderness. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

COLONIAL    INDIVIDUALITY 

IN  order  to  understand  the  difficulty  that  Franklin 
found  in  inducing  a  union  of  the  colonies  it  is 
necessary  to  remember  the  circumstances  of  their 
history.  At  the  time  of  Franklin's  effort — the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century — the  prominent 
men  of  the  several  colonies  were  in  tolerably  free 
communication  with  each  other.  It  is  true  that 
there  were  no  trustworthy  mails,  no  telegraphs,  no 
cheap  postage,  and  no  newspapers  of  more  than 
local  circulation.  But  in  spite  of  these  facts  the 
colonists  north  and  south  had  by  this  time  more 
or  less  of  communication  with  each  other.  Coast 
ing  vessels  did  much  to  acquaint  the  people  of 
each  colony  with  what  was  going  on  in  the  others, 
and  the  personal  traveler  was  always  expected  to 
carry  a  budget  of  letters  whithersoever  he  went. 

The  growth  of  the   colonies  had   in    fact  brought 
them  much  nearer  together  than  they  had  ever  been 
before.      Moreover,  as  their  dangers  thickened  and 
84 


COLONIAL  INDIVIDUALITY 


85 


their  difficulties  increased,  the  leading  men  in  each 
colony  more  and  more  felt  the  necessity  of  con 
sulting  those  of  the  other  colonies. 

But  it  had  not  been  so  from  the  first.  Each  colony 
had  been  established  independently  of  all  the  rest 
and  for  a  long  time  each  had  remained  practically 
without  communica 
tion  with  its  neigh 
bors.  Travel  had 
been  difficult,  dis 
tances  long,  and 
communication  very 
infrequent. 

Another  thing  that 
for  a  long  time  ten 
ded  to  prevent  any 
thing  like  common 
action  among  the 
colonies  was  the  fact 
that  their  conditions 
varied  widely.  Out  of  this  circumstance  grew  the 
fact  that  each  developed  institutions  for  itself,  adapted 
to  its  own  conditions  and  in  many  ways  totally  un 
like  those  which  had  been  developed  out  of  the  con 
ditions  and  circumstances  of  its  neighbor  colonies. 

In   New    England  the   farms  were   small   and   a 


The  postal  service  in  1700. 


86  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

large  proportion  of  the  people  were  engaged  in  fish 
ing,  or  in  commerce,  or  in  the  mechanic  arts.  In 
that  region  therefore  the  people  lived  mainly  in 
villages,  or  near  to  them.  There  was  much  public 
work  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  making  roads,  buil 
ding  bridges,  establishing  schools,  maintaining  the 


Travelling  on  horseback. 

church,  and  in  other  ways,  which  was  best  done  by 
local  authority. 

It  is  a  principle  of  sound  political  government 
that  popular  liberty  exists  in  every  country  in  the 
precise  degree  in  which  the  functions  of  government 


COLONIAL  INDIVIDUALITY  87 

are  minutely  subdivided  and  distributed.  The  ideal 
of  free  government  is  that  the  individual  shall  de 
termine  for  himself  everything  that  pertains  only  to 
himself;  that  the  local  community — be  it  town  or 
what  not — shall  decide  for  itself  whatsoever  pertains 
exclusively  to  its  own  interests  and  welfare,  and  that 
larger  affairs  affecting  a  larger  area  shall  be  governed 
and  determined  by  some  form  of  representative  as 
sembly  acting  for  all  the  people  of  that  larger  area. 

This  principle  prevailed  in  the  development  of  all 
the  colonies,  but  varying  conditions  gave  to  it  a  dif 
ferent  application  in  one  and  another  of  them.  In 
New  England  the  system  of  town  government  nat 
urally  and  perfectly  answered  the  needs  of  the  people 
— so  perfectly  indeed  that  Thomas  Jefferson  of 
Virginia  fell  in  love  with  it  and  labored  for  years  to 
introduce  it  into  his  own  more  southern  colony. 

There,  however,  and  in  the  colonies  south  of 
Virginia,  conditions  were  such  as  to  forbid  this. 
The  people  of  those  colonies  lived  upon  vast  planta 
tions  far  removed  from  each  other  and  scarcely  at 
all  in  villages  or  in  the  neighborhood  of  villages. 
Among  them,  both  a  larger  and  a  smaller  unit  were 
necessary.  The  smaller  unit,  as  the  scholarly  Mr. 
Bruce  has  pointed  out,  was  the  plantation,  which 
was  compelled  to  exist  in  practical  independence  of 


88  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

all  other  plantations  and  of  all  other  relations.  It 
must  provide  for  itself.  It  must  have  its  own  com 
missariat  in  order  that  the  people,  white  and  black, 
living  upon  it  should  be  fed,  and  clothed,  and 
housed.  It  must  be  governed  by  its  master  in 
dependently  of  all  other  agencies  of  government. 

The  larger  civil  unit  in  the  south  was  the  county. 
It  was  the  function  of  the  county  court,  acting  not 
only  judicially  and  legislatively,  but  administratively 
also,  to  provide  for  the  maintenance  of  roads,  the 
building  of  bridges,  and  all  those  other  interests  that 
belong  to  the  community. 

In  another  important  respect  this  difference  made 
itself  manifest.  In  New  England,  where  the  popula 
tion  was  concentrated  in  and  around  villages,  it  was 
possible  for  the  town  to  maintain  schools,  either 
public  or  private,  as  the  case  might  be,  for  the  educa 
tion  of  all  the  children.  In  Virginia  and  the  colo 
nies  south  of  that  region  this  was  difficult,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  population  was  too  widely 
scattered.  In  very  few  places  were  there  enough 
children  within  the  radius  of  possible  school  atten 
dance  to  form  even  a  small  school.  The  result  of 
this  condition  was  that  the  great  planters  who  wished 
to  educate  their  children  were  compelled  to  employ 
tutors  and  governesses  of  their  own.  Often  a  num- 


COLONIAL  INDIVIDUALITY 


89 


her  of  planters  would  combine  their  resources  in 
this  respect.  One  of  them  would  employ  the  tutor, 
or  the  governess  or  both,  and  the  rest  would  send 
their  sons  and  daughters  to  him — not  to  "  board  " 


In  a  Virginia  home. 

with  him,  for  the  southern  planter  intensely  resented 
the  idea  of  receiving  pay  from  any  of  his  friends  for 
food  and  lodging — but  to  "  live  "  with  him,  and  at 
tend  the  school.  The  only  expense  which  they 
were  permitted  to  share  was  that  of  employing  the 
governess,  or  the  tutor,  or  both.  All  the  rest  was 


90  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

hospitality,  pure  and  simple.  Of  common  schools 
for  all  the  people  there  were  practically  none. 

These  differences  of  social  and  political  life  were 
fundamental.  They  were  the  outgrowths  of  con 
ditions  and  circumstances  and  they  were  in  many  ways 
irreconcilable.  Accordingly  it  was  felt  among  the 
people  of  the  various  colonies  that  there  was  not  a 
sufficient  community  of  habit  to  justify  a  community 
of  interest  and  activity.  Each  colony  was  very  nat 
urally  jealous  of  its  own  institutions — institutions 
which  it  had  built  up  to  meet  its  own  needs.  In 
each  colony  there  was  a  feeling  that  anything  like  a 
general  government,  authorized  to  control  all  of 
them,  might  endanger  the  integrity  of  their  several 
systems.  The  Federal  idea  had  not  yet  taken  hold 
of  men's  minds  and  they  had  not  yet  become  recon 
ciled  to  it,  simply  because  of  their  desire  in  each  case 
to  go  on  managing  their  own  affairs  in  the  way  which 
they  had  found  to  be  good. 

It  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that 
the  colonies  rejected  Franklin's  plan,  wise  as  it  was, 
and  refused  to  set  up  a  general  government  whose 
authority  might  encroach  upon  their  liberty  of  in 
dividual  action.  This  jealousy  continued  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  not  only  through  the  Revolution  but 
for  several  years  after  it  was  finished.  Even  at  the 


COLONIAL  INDIVIDUALITY  91 

time  of  greatest  peril  to  all  the  colonies  in  conflict 
with  England,  it  prevented  the  formation  of  a  gen 
eral  government  capable  of  levying  taxes,  raising 
money  or  effectively  doing  anything  for  the  common 
defence.  It  was  not  until  some  years  after  indepen 
dence  was  secured  that  consent  was  given  to  the 
creation  of  a  general  government  of  adequate  power. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    DESTRUCTION     OF     THE    FRENCH     POWER     IN 
AMERICA 

A  GOOD  deal    of  the   trouble   encountered    in 
the  management  of  the  colonial  wars  was  due 

to  the  inability  of  the  English  government  to 
understand  the  conditions  that  prevailed  in  America. 
For  lack  of  such  understanding  the  English  gov 
ernment  brought  to  bear  upon  American  problems 
no  practical  intelligence  whatever.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  thought  of  the  English  statesmen  of 
that  time  that  almost  anybody  who  had  a  title  was 
competent  to  rule  in  the  colonies  and  to  conduct 
military  operations  there. 

The  French  on  the  contrary  were  steadily  "  put 
ting  their  best  foot  foremost."  They  sent  out  their 
greatest  soldier,  the  Marquis  de  Montcalm,  to  take 
charge  of  their  interests  in  America.  About  the 
same  time,  in  1756,  the  English  government  sent 
out  a  most  incapable  person  called  the  Earl  of  Lou- 
doun,  making  him  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Eng- 

92 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER     93 

lish  and  colonial  armies  in  America,  and  at  the  same 
time  Governor  of  Virginia. 

Behind  this  appointment  was  the  conviction  that 
the  colonies  ought  to  act  together  under  a  single 
government,  and  that  conviction,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  a  wise  one  in  its 
way.  But  in  order  to  secure  such 
acting  together  on  the  part  of  the 
colonies  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  the  colonists  themselves  should 
bring  it  about  or  at  least  consent  to 

TTT.   ,  1-11  General  Montcalm. 

it.      Without  consulting  them,  how 
ever,   Lord   Loudoun  was  appointed   Governor  of 
Virginia,  with  authority  to   establish  a  military  rule 
in  America  which  should  control  all  the  colonies. 

Lord  Loudoun  blundered  from  the  beginning.  He 
saw  the  desirability  of  reconquering  Louisburg  which 
had,  as  we  know,  been  conquered  by  the  colonists 
before  and  foolishly  given  back  by  the  English  gov 
ernment  to  the  French  as  a  club  with  which  to  break 
the  back  of  the  English  power  in  America. 

But  his  method  of  attempting  this  conquest  gave 
to  the  great  French  soldier,  Montcalm,  the  oppor 
tunity  he  wanted.  Lord  Loudoun,  in  order  to  as 
sail  Louisburg,  stripped  New  York  and  the  other 
northern  colonies  of  the  troops  who  were  sorely 


94  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

needed  to  protect  the  border  against  French  inva 
sion.  In  June,  1757,  Loudoun's  force  set  sail  for 
Louisburg,  leaving  the  border  almost  helpless.  He 
accomplished  nothing.  He  went  as  far  as  Halifax 
and,  after  paltering  for  a  time,  turned  back  and  sailed 
for  New  York. 

In  the   meanwhile   Montcalm  was  quick  to  seize 
upon    the   opportunity  given   to    him.      When   the 
troops  that  should  have  defended  the 
northern   border  were  withdrawn  the 
French  commander  at  once  marched 
with  his  French  forces  and  his  Indian 
allies    to    seize    upon    Fort    William 
Henry  at  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
Lord  Loudoun.     George,   seventy   miles   north   of  Al 
bany.      He  took  the  fort,  and  his  Indian  allies  butch 
ered  the  garrison. 

Fortunately  a  change  of  government  in  England 
came  about  this  time.  A  wise  man  named  William 
Pitt,  afterwards  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  took  the  place 
of  the  dunces  who  had  preceded  him  in  control  of 
British  foreign  affairs.  His  first  act,  so  far  as  the 
colonies  were  concerned,  was  to  remove  the  incom 
petent  Lord  Loudoun.  His  next  was  to  make  a 
sensible  arrangement  with  the  colonies,  with  regard 
to  the  expenses  of  the  war.  He  proposed  that  the 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER     95 

colonists  should  furnish  the  troops  necessary  to  carry 
it  to  a  successful  conclusion,  and  provide  clothing 
and  pay  for  their  own  soldiers,  but  not  for  any 
British  troops  that  might  be  sent  out  to  help  them. 
In  return  for  this,  he,  first  of  all  English  authori 
ties,  settled  once  for  all  the  vexed  question  of  rank 
between  English  and  American  officers.  Previous 
to  that  time  it  had  always  been  arrogantly  held 
that  any  English  regular  officer, 
whatever  his  grade  might  be, 
should  outrank  in  command  a 
colonial  officer  even  though  that 
officer  might  hold  a  superior 
rank.  Pitt  arranged  that  the 
American  officers  should  stand 
on  a  level  with  those  sent  out 

•  i       i       r»   •  •   i  ,  r  William  Pitt. 

with  the  British  regulars,  man  for 
man.      This  was  an  enormous  concession  to  colonial 
pride  and,  in  response,  the  colonies  gladly  voted  to 
the    English  service   all   the   troops    that  might   be 
asked  for. 

Under  these  conditions  of  justice  and  common 
sense,  three  expeditions  were  hopefully  set  on  foot. 
One  of  them  was  to  assail  Louisburg  ;  one  was  to 
proceed  to  Fort  Duquesne  ;  and  the  third  was  to  as 
sail  the  fortresses  at  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point. 


96  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


These  three  expeditions  constituted  the  chief  features 
of  the  proposed  campaign,  but  they  were  not  quite 
all  of  it.  Other  and  minor  operations  were  under 
taken  in  aid  of  them. 

The  operation  against  Louis- 
burg  was  made  by  sea  and  land 
and  lasted  for  nearly  two  months, 
under  the  entirely  capable  com 
mand  of  General  Amherst.  At 
the  end  of  that  time,  on  July  27th, 
1758,  Louisburg  was  conquered. 

A  little  more  than  a  month 
later,  General  Bradstreet  made  a 
conquest  of  Fort  Frontenac,  which 
commanded  Lake  Ontario,  and 
destroyed  the  entire  French  fleet 
on  that  lake.  The  result  of  these 
operations  was  to  cut  off  Fort 
Duquesne,  where  Pittsburg  now 
stands,  from  all  its  sources  of  sup 
ply,  to  render  it  helpless,  and  in 

Uniform  of  43d  Regi-  f 

ment  of  Foot,  raised  in  the  end  to  Compel  its  abandon- 
America  (1740).  ment>  Thus,  at  last,  intelligence 
instead  of  stupidity  had  taken  control  of  the 
war. 

General  Forbes,  a  thoroughly  capable  commander, 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER     97 

and  a  man  of  great  resolution,  had  been  placed  in 
charge  of  the  expedition  against  Fort  Duquesne. 
He  was  a  regularly  trained  British  officer,  but  he 
had  none  of  the  arrogance  of  Braddock.  Unlike 
that  commander  he  consulted  Washington  as  to 
methods  of  warfare  in  the  woods  and  accepted  his 
advice.  He  went  further  even  than  this.  As  he 
approached  the  French  fortress,  he  threw  Washing 
ton  with  his  Virginians  to  the  front,  and  trusted 
the  great  colonial  commander  to  make  the  assault 
in  an  effective  way.  Forbes  himself  was  mortally 
ill  and  was  carried  during  the  march  on  a  litter. 
He  ought  to  have  gone  to  a  hospital  but,  with  a 
resolute  mind,  he  determined  to  remain  with  his 
column  until  its  work  should  be  done.  He  was 
wise  enough  to  make  the  young  colonial  officer, 
George  Washington,  second  only  to  himself  in  com 
mand.  And  when  he  himself  fell  ill  he  trusted 
practically  everything  to  the  sagacity  of  this  young 
man,  born  in  Virginia,  and  bred  in  the  woods.  He 
had  sense  enough  to  see  that  Washington  was  fitter 
to  command  than  any  other  officer  he  had  with  him, 
and,  on  grounds  of  fitness  alone,  he  left  the  direction 
of  affairs  largely  to  him — mere  boy  that  he  was. 

On  the  26th  of  November,  1758,  Washington,  in 
command  of  the  expedition,  reached  Fort  Duquesne 


98  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

only  to  find  that  the  French  had  abandoned  it  and 
burned  all  of  its  buildings  on  the  day  before.  Wash 
ington  was  thus  at  last  permitted  to  take  possession 
of  that  position  which  he  had  for  so  long  a  time  in 
sisted  was  the  key  to  the  Ohio  country.  Forbes 
gave  him  authority  to  build  there  a  strong  and  per 
manently  defensible  English  fortress,  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  of  Fort  Pitt,  at  the  same  time  naming 
the  spot  itself  Pittsburg — both  in  honor  of  the  only 
English  minister  who  had  intelligently  directed  colo 
nial  affairs. 

By  this  time  Washington,  young  as  he  was,  had 
begun  to  be  a  man  of  superior  mark  in  Virginia  and 
even  in  the  colonies  other  than  Virginia  which  were 
engaged  in  this  loosely  organized  struggle.  He  was 
not  only  recognized  as  the  ablest  military  comman 
der  in  the  colonies,  and  one  capable  even  of  instruct 
ing  British  officers  in  the  arts  of  American  cam 
paigning,  but  he  had  begun  to  be  recognized  also 
as  a  man  of  supreme  common  sense  whose  counsels 
were  needed  in  the  conduct  of  the  social  and  political 
affairs  of  the  colony. 

During  this  expedition  against  Fort  Duquesne, 
George  Washington  was  nominated  for  a  seat  in 
that  House  of  Burgesses  which  gave  law  to  Virginia 
and  directed  all  public  affairs  of  that  colony.  So 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER     99 

great  was  his  popularity  that  in  his  absence  he  was 
elected  by  an  overwhelming  majority  over  three 
competitors. 

When  the  struggle  for  Fort  Duquesne  was  over 
and  its  conquest  had  been  made  a  permanent  fact 
of  the  military  situation  by  his  engineering  skill  in 
fortifying  there,  he  returned  to  his  home  at  Mount 
Vernon  to  enjoy  a  little  honeymoon  with  his  newly 
wedded  wife. 

He  had  in  the  meantime  resigned  his  military 
commission  and  determined  to  lead  thenceforward 
that  planter  life  which  he  always  preferred  to  any 
other,  and  from  which  he  was  drawn  throughout  al 
most  all  his  life  solely  by  a  sense  of  obligation  to 
render  public  service. 

He  had  hardly  settled  himself  at  Mount  Vernon, 
however,  before  he  was  summoned  to  take  his  place 
in  the  House  of  Burgesses  at  Williamsburg  and  do 
his  part  there  as  a  Virginian  chosen  by  his  fellow- 
citizens  for  a  service  of  peace. 

Then  occurred  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and 
gratifying  incidents  of  this  great  man's  life.  He 
was  only  twenty-six  years  of  age  and  was  wholly 
unknown  in  the  political  life  of  his  native  state. 
The  House  of  Burgesses  included  among  its  mem 
bers  the  most  distinguished  statesmen  that  Virginia 


100   LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

could  boast  even  in  that  golden  time.  Many  of 
them  were  old  enough  to  be  Washington's  father  or 
grandfather  and  wise  enough  to  be  his  mentor.  Yet 
in  anticipation  of  his  coming  this  House  of  Bur 
gesses,  composed  of  Virginia's  most  distinguished 
men,  had  by  unanimous  vote  instructed  its  speaker 
to  welcome  him  in  the  most  conspicuous  and  honor 
able  way  that  could  be  devised. 

Ignorant  of  the  honors  planned   for  him,  young 


A  Virginia  mansion,  Westover. 

Washington  modestly  entered  the  hall  of  the  House 
of  Burgesses  and  took  his  seat.  As  he  did  so,  the 
speaker  of  the  house  arose  and,  in  a  speech  glowing 
with  eloquence,  presented  to  him  the  thanks  of  the 
House,  and  the  colony  that  it  represented,  for  his 
brilliant  and  untiring  military  service.  That  speaker 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENH  POWKft    101 


was  possessed  of  the  eloqijenrej  wiiicht  ibLa^ 
characteristic  of  so  many  Virginians  throughout  their 
history  and  he  pronounced  a  eulogy  upon  this  young 
man  which  fairly  stunned  and  staggered  him. 

At  the  end  of  it  young  Washington  arose  and 
made  almost  the  only  failure  of  his  life  in  an  at 
tempt  to  reply.  He  was  so  overcome  that  he  almost 
lost  the  power  of  utterance.  He  stammered  so 
helplessly  that  one  who  was  present  on  that  occasion 
has  left  it  upon  record  that  the  young  man  u  could 
not  give  distinct  utterance  to  a  single  syllable." 
This  brave  and  brilliant  youth,  who  had  never 


Negro  quarters. 

shrunk  from  danger,  had  never  shirked  his  duty, 
had  never  quailed  before  a  foe,  and  had  never  failed 
to  acquit  himself  well  in  the  presence  of  any  condi 
tion,  fairly  broke  down. 


102    LIFE  I'N  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

•'His  -breakdown  "was  quite  as  honorable  to  him 
as  any  of  his  successes  had  been  and  the  speaker  of 
the  house,  uttering  the  thought  and  expressing  the 
feeling  of  every  man  within  its  walls,  came  to  his 
relief.  He  arose  and  interrupted  Washington  with 
the  command  :  "Sit  down,  Mr.  Washington  !  Your 
modesty  equals  your  valor  and  that  surpasses  the 
power  of  any  language  I  possess." 

The  expedition  against  Crown  Point  and  Ticon- 
deroga  was  far  less  fortunate  than 
that  against  Fort  Duquesne,  chiefly 
because  of  stupidity  in  its  manage 
ment.  That  expedition  had  been 
placed,  nominally  at  least,  under  the 
command  of  General  Abercromby, 
who,  by  reason  of  his  rank,  had  a 
Lord  Howe.  claim  to  superiority  over  his  assis 
tant,  Lord  Howe.  But  Lord  Howe  was  a  capable 
soldier,  as  Abercromby  was  not,  and  it  was  intended 
by  Pitt  that  Lord  Howe  rather  than  General  Aber 
cromby,  should  direct  operations  as  the  actual  leader 
and  commander  of  the  expedition. 

Unfortunately  Lord  Howe  was  killed  in  a  skir 
mish  a  little  while  before  the  attack  upon  Ticonderoga 
was  made.  Thereupon  Abercromby  became,  in  fact 
as  well  as  in  name,  the  commander  of  the  expedition 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER   103 

with  full  license  to  blunder  to  the  utmost  extent  of 
his  ignorance  of  military  affairs.  He  attacked  the 
fort  in  front — that  is  to  say,  on  its  very  strongest 
side — where  there  was  no  hope  of  accomplishing 
anything  against  it  except  by  the  use  of  artillery, 
which  he  had  not.  He  ordered  that  the  fort 
should  be  taken  by  a  charge  of  bayonets.  The  men 
made  the  effort  very  gallantly  but  with  no  possibil 
ity  of  success.  They  were  beaten  back  and  pres 
ently  retreated  in 
panic.  But  this 
disaster  at  Ticon- 
deroga  was  destined 
to  have  no  import- 
ant  influence  upon  Ruins  of  Fort 

the  completion  of  the  work  of  war.  The  French 
power  in  America  was  already  crumbling  to  its 
fall. 

The  capture  of  Fort  Frontenac  and  Fort  Du- 
quesne  had  practically  severed  all  communication 
between  the  French  in  Canada  and  their  friends  in 
Louisiana,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  It 
had  given  to  the  English  secure  possession  of  the 
Ohio  valley  and  of  all  the  region  west  of  the  Alle 
gheny  mountains.  It  had  destroyed  the  very  bases 
of  the  French  fur  trade  and  worse  still,  so  far  as  the 


104  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

French  were  concerned,  it  had  convinced  the  In 
dians,  who  had  hitherto  been  loyal  to  the  French, 
that  the  power  of  their  allies  was  nearing  its  end. 
After  that  the  Indians  quickly  cast  off  their  alle 
giance  to  the  French. 

Further  still,  the  final  fall  of  Louisburg — the 
great  French  fortress  which  had  so  long  stood  in 
the  way — opened  a  water  route  by  which  a  British 
fleet  might  approach  Quebec  itself.  It  opened  the 
way  to  the  crowning  campaign  of  the  war.  Under 
the  orders  of  Pitt — who  might  have 
been  a  great  soldier  if  his  genius  had 
not  been  devoted  more  exclusively  to 
great  statesmanship — General  Amherst, 
now  Commander-in-chief  of  all  the 
General  Am-  British  forces  in  America,  advanced 
herst.  into  Canada  by  way  of  Lake  George 
and  Lake  Champlain,  conquering  the  Forts  at  Ti- 
conderoga  and  Crown  Point  on  his  way.  This  was 
in  1759,  and  during  the  same  year,  almost  at  the 
same  time,  a  brilliant  young  officer,  General  James 
Wolfe,  who  had  distinguished  himself  at  Louisburg, 
was  directed  to  lead  an  expedition  up  the  St.  Law 
rence  against  Quebec,  the  last  of  the  great  French 
strongholds  in  America. 

Quebec   lay  upon  a  great   plain,  at  the   top  of  a 


DESTRUCTION  OF  FRENCH  POWER   105 

high  and  well  nigh  inaccessible  bluff.  The  place 
was  heavily  fortified  and  defended  by  French  regu 
lars  under  Montcalm,  a  great  general.  After  a 
month  or  so  of  futile  endeavor  Wolfe  at  last  found 
a  path  by  which  he  scaled  the  bluff 
and  placed  his  army  in  rear  of  the 
city  and  the  forts,  shutting  them  off 
from  supplies.  Montcalm  was 
forced  to  come  out  and  give  battle 
on  the  open  field,  where  Wolfe  de 
feated  him  in  a  fierce  battle  in  which 
both  he  and  Montcalm  were  killed.  General  Wolfe' 
Quebec  was  taken  and  all  of  Canada  was  surrendered 
finally  to  the  British.  When  peace  was  at  last  con 
cluded  between  England  and  France  in  1763,  the 
French  gave  up  to  the  British  all  of  their  American 
possessions  east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  except  a 
little  district  around  New  Orleans. 

Except  for  the  hostility  of  the  Indians,  therefore, 
the  English  colonies  on  the  Atlantic  coast  were  now 
free  to  push  their  settlements  westward  into  the 
great  fertile  region  that  lies  between  the  Alleghen- 
ies  and  the  Mississippi.  A  new  empire  of  vast 
extent  and  boundless  resources  was  thrown  open  to 
the  men  who  had  already,  in  effect,  created  a  great 
English-speaking  nation  in  America. 


106  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


Old  view  of  Quebec. 


CHAPTER   X 

SOME    COLONIAL    GRIEVANCES 

WHEN  the  great  French  and  Indian  war 
ended,  in  1763,  there  had  been  English  col 
onies  in  America  for  more  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years.  The  English  settlements  had  not 
only  taken  root  but  had  grown  vigorously.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  people  in  the  colonies  were 
by  that  time  native  Americans.  They  knew  no 
other  country  as  their  own  but  this.  In  a  sentimen 
tal  way  they  were  still  loyal  to  the  mother  land  and 
to  its  king,  but  they  had  never  been  in  England 
and  they  had  by  this  time  accepted  new  ideas  of 
their  own.  New  impulses  of  liberty  had  been  born 
in  them.  Living  in  conditions  totally  different  from 
those  that  existed  in  England  they  had  built  up  for 
themselves  systems  of  government  which  were  in 
deed  founded  upon  the  broad  principles  of  English 
liberty,  but  which  differed  in  radical  ways  from  the 
system  of  government  that  prevailed  in  the  mother 
country. 

107 


108  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Still  more  markedly  they  had  developed  new  so 
cial  systems  of  their  own.  In  the  South  a  certain 
conservatism  of  mind  had  preserved  the  old  English 
traditions  in  a  very  great  degree,  though  these  were 
modified  considerably  by  the  differing  conditions  of 
colonial  life.  But  this  very  preservation  of  the  in 
herited  ideas  of  a  century  and  a  half  before  made  the 
lives  of  the  colonists  radically  different  from  the  lives 
of  Englishmen  in  England.  A  hundred  and  fifty 
years  is  a  very  long  period,  and  during  that  time 
vast  changes  had  occurred  in  England,  many  of 
which  were  not  reflected  in  the  life  of  the  colonists. 

In  Pennsylvania 
the  Quaker  influ 
ence  and  the  great 
influx  of  Germans 
and  Scotch- 
Irishmen  which 
had  taken  place 
during  that  time, 
had  brought  about 

Old  Dutch  house.  r  ..    . 

a  system  or  living 

altogether  different  from  that  which  then  prevailed  in 
England.  In  New  York  the  influence  of  Dutch  ideas 
had  not  yet  expended  itself,  and  life  there  still  bore 
distinct  marks  of  the  Dutch  origin  of  that  colony. 


SOME  COLONIAL  GRIEVANCES         109 

In  New  England  peculiar  conditions  had  tended 
from  the  first  to  lead  the  people  into  new  ways  of 
living  and  thinking,  quite  other  than  those  which 
the  original  colonists  had  brought  with  them  from 
England. 

When  we  add  to  these  things  the  fact  that  the  re 
lations  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country 
had  involved  much  of  friction,  and,  in  the  view  of 
the  colonists,  much  of  injustice  and  even  of  oppres 
sion  at  times,  it  is  not  at  all  wonderful  that  after  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  spirit  of  dis 
content  and  antagonism  which  had  long  existed,  be 
came  acute  among  the  Englishmen  in  America. 

RUN  away,  on  the  $d 

Cay  of  May  laft,  a  young 
Negro  Boy,  named  jto,  rhw 
Country  borr>i  iormcrly  be 
lorgcd  to  Capt.  Hugh  f&gt. 
Whocrcr  bdrgi  the  laid  Ooy 
the  Snbfcribcrat  Edife,  or  to 
Work  HcaJc  in  Ckarlej  Vow,  ihall 
have  3  /  reward.  On  the  contrary  who 
ever  harboun  the  faid  Boy,  may  depend 
upon  being  fcvcrcly  profecurcd,  by 

tflomaj  Cliff) am* 

Notice  of  runaway  slave.     "  Charleston  Gazette,"  1754. 

For  one  thing  England  had  forced  upon  the  un 
willing  colonists  the  acceptance  of  African  slavery. 


110  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

There  were  many  people  in  the  colonies,  who,  for 
reasons  of  personal  convenience  and  benefit,  desired 
a  large  importation  of  African  slaves.  But  there 
were  a  much  larger  number  who  dreaded  an  increase  of 
slave  population  lest  it  result  in  black  insurrections, 
and  the  better  people  of  the  southern  colonies  ob 
jected  to  the  system  on  moral  and  humane  and  other 

TO  BE  SOLD  ty  WiDiam 

Yeomaot,  (fa  Clarltt  ftw*   Iford)***,}  A 

fine    Crt- 


Rice  in  Pay- 

Mint,  tr  any      OlWWm         good 

Itg  fcMlti  MdFwnituret  efalce  Barbadot 

Boil  en  Rum,    afi       Cordial 

Llmejtfctt  **  wt]l  at  a  fwcel  tf 

ltd**  trading  G*tlit  and  vn**j 
tbtr       t  ftttt  able  fit  lit  teafi*. 

Illustrated  advertisement  from  the  "  Charleston  Gazette,"  1744. 

ethical  grounds.  Virginia,  South  Carolina  and 
other  colonies  sought  to  prevent  the  influx  of  negro 
slaves  by  many  laws  of  their  own.  Some  of  these 
laws  absolutely  prohibited  the  further  importation 
of  negro  slaves.  Some  of  them  placed  upon  such 


SOME  COLONIAL  GRIEVANCES         111 

importation  a  head  tax  so  heavy  as  to  discourage 
the  traffic  and  make  an  end  of  it.  In  one  way  or 
another  those  colonies  into  which  this  tide  of  negro 
slave  immigration  was  coming  made  every  effort  in 
their  power  to  dam  it  up  and  stop  it.  They  feared 
it.  They  were  well-nigh  appalled  by  the  dangers 
that  it  threatened.  It  was  felt  to  be  an  evil  in  the 
present  and  a  terrible  menace  for  the  future.  But 
every  law  that  any  colony  made  against  this  nefarious 
traffic  was  vetoed  by  the  authority  of  the  English 
government.  This  was  done  because  the  traffic  in 
slaves  from  the  west  coast  of  Africa  was  an  enor 
mously  profitable  one  to  those  who  were  engaged 
in  it,  and  because  not  only  the  courtiers  and  the 
statesmen  of  England  but  the  king  himself,  had 
money  invested  in  it. 

But  for  this  British  interference  the  number  of 
negro  slaves  in  this  country  would  have  remained  so 
small  that  their  ultimate  emancipation  would  have 
been  a  problem  easy  to  solve,  and  the  people  of  this 
nation  would  have  been  spared  all  the  evils  and  dis 
turbances  which  the  presence  of  a  great  slave  popu 
lation  ultimately  brought  upon  the  country,  including 
a  terrible  civil  war. 

The  unjust  trade  laws,  as  we  have  seen  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  very  seriously  impaired  the  prosperity 


112  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  the  colonists.  The  original  Navigation  Act,  while 
somewhat  encouraging  New  England  shipbuilding 
and  commerce,  had  vainly  sought  to  compel  the  colo 
nists  to  trade  only  with  England  and  her  outlying  pos 
sessions.  In  1733  another  law,  known  in  history  as 
the  Sugar  and  Molasses  Act,  was  enacted.  The  pur 
pose  of  it  was  to  compel  the  colonists,  under  heavy 
penalty,  to  import  all  their  sugar,  molasses  and  rum, 
from  the  British  West  Indies.  Under  this  law  a 
heavy  import  duty  was  imposed  upon  such  goods 
when  brought  into  the  colonies  from  any  country 
except  Great  Britain  itself  or  the  British  West  Indies. 
If  this  law  had  been  enforced  it  would  have  de 
livered  a  staggering  blow  to  the  commerce  and  pros 
perity  of  the  colonies  especially  of  New  England, 
for  by  that  time  the  bold  Yankee  sailor  boys  had 
built  up  an  extremely  profitable  trade  with  those 
West  India  islands  which  belonged  to  the  French 
and  Spanish.  None  of  these  laws  could  be  en 
forced,  however.  Public  sentiment  in  the  colonies 
justified  shipmasters  and  merchants  in  evading  them, 
and  they  did  so  in  a  hundred  ingenious  ways. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  ATTEMPT  TO    ENFORCE    OBNOXIOUS    LAWS  I    JAMES 
OTIS'S    INSPIRING    MAXIM. 

IN    1760,  George  III  came  to  the  throne  in  Eng 
land.      He  was  an  obstinate  person  of  dull  mind, 
and  of  an  overweening  sense  of  his  own  impor 
tance  and  his   own  authority.       His  rule  was  alto 
gether  arbitrary  and  reactionary. 

In  1761,  William  Pitt,  the  elder,  whose  wise  di 
rection  of  affairs  had  brought  the  English  arms  to 
victory  in  America,  in  Europe,  and  on  the  seas,  was 
forced  out  of  office,  and  a  new  and  very  illiberal 
policy  was  adopted  by  the  English  government  in 
its  relations  with  America.  Among  other  things, 
George  III  and  his  minister  Grenville,  decided  to 
enforce  in  the  rigidest  possible  way,  the  trade  laws 
which  for  half  a  century  and  more  the  colonists  had 
been  evading  and  defying  with  impunity. 

In  order  to  evade  these  laws  merchants  and  ship 
masters    were    accustomed    to    bribe     the     customs 
officers  and  thus  induce  them  to  wink  at  evasions. 
H  113 


114  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Ships  would  land  at  a  dock,  unload  the  greater 
part  of  their  cargoes  and,  only  after  doing  so,  re 
port  their  arrival  to  the  customs  officers.  These 
officers  in  collusion  with  the  shipmasters  would 
then  go  on  board  and  assess  duties  only  upon 
such  small  part  of  the  cargo  as  remained  in  the 
ship's  hold.  The  rest  of  the  goods  had  been  landed 


A,LAW  OF  THE  COLONY  OF 
Nnu-Tork,  THIS  Bill  SHALL: 
pafs  current  -T&T-  fQK  F  I P  E 
POUNDS.  jyf  NEW-YORK,' 
tne  SECOND  DAY  OF  APRIL,  One 
Thoufand  Seven  Hundred  and  Fifty 


[Numb 


'Tis  Death  TO  counterfeit  tbii  BILL. 

•  =:==:==:•:==::===:= 

New  York  colonial  currency. 

without  paying  any  duty  at  all.  This  of  course  was 
an  illegal  practice  and  an  immoral  one.  But  even 
the  most  religious  people  of  that  time  sanctioned  it 
as  an  act  of  just  and  rightful  resistance  to  an  unjust 
and  oppressive  law,  enacted  by  foreign  authority. 


OBNOXIOUS  LAWS  115 

Under  George  III  it  was  decided  to  follow  up  the 
goods  thus  illegally  landed,  to  find,  and  to  confis 
cate  them  as  smuggled  merchandise  even  after  they 
had  been  sold  ashore.  To  that  end  a  British  com 
missioner  of  customs  was  sent  out  to  Boston  who 
appealed  to  the  courts  of  Massachusetts  for  what 
were  called  "  Writs  of  Assistance."  These  were  in 
effect  general  search  warrants,  good  for  an  indefinite 
period,  not  returnable  into  any  court,  which  author 
ized  the  customs  officer  to  search  all  houses  and 
warehouses  at  will  for  dutiable  goods  supposed  to 
be  concealed  therein.  They  were  in  effect  blanket 
search  warrants,  violative  of  a  fundamental  principle 
of  the  liberty  of  the  citizen,  and  capable  of  enormous 
abuse  in  the  hands  of  an  officer  disposed  to  mis 
chief. 

When  the  merchants  of  Boston  appealed  to  the 
courts  contending  that  these  Writs  of  Assistance  were 
illegal  in  form  and  oppressive  in  effect  and  that 
they  should  not  be  issued,  it  became  the  official  duty 
of  James  Otis,  at  that  time  Advocate  General  for 
the  colony,  to  argue  the  case  in  favor  of  the  king 
and  the  commissioner.  But  James  Otis  was  a  pa 
triot  in  full  sympathy  with  the  colonial  antagonism 
to  this  injustice  and  to  the  oppression  of  the  trade 
laws  themselves.  Rather  than  appear  as  Advocate 


116  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

General  in  behalf  of  the  issue  of  these  writs  James 
Otis  resigned  his  very  lucrative  and  honorable  office 
and  took  the  other  side.  He  went  into  the  court 
and  spoke  with  extraordinary  eloquence  for  more 
than  five  hours,  arguing  against  the  writs,  and  for 
the  first  time  putting  forth  the  war  cry  of  the  Revo 
lution  that  "  Taxation  without  Representation  is 
Tyranny/' 

These  trade  laws  against  which  the  colonists  were 
in  revolt  were  enacted  by  the  British 
Parliament  in  which  the  colonies  and 
their  people  had  no  representation 
whatsoever.  It  was  a  part  of  the  fun 
damental  principle  of  English  liberty 
that  taxation  could  be  legally  imposed 
*  only  by  a  parliament  representing  the 
James  Otis.  peOple  wno  were  to  be  taxed.  As  the 
Americans  were  not  represented  in  the  British  Par 
liament  they  promptly  accepted  Otis's  dictum  as  ap 
plicable  to  their  case  not  only  with  reference  to  the 
Trade  Laws  but  with  reference  also  to  every  other 
law  which  might  be  made  by  the  Parliament  of  Eng 
land  to  impose  a  tax  upon  the  people  of  this  country. 
They  had  always  been  ready  and  willing,  through 
their  representative  bodies,  to  tax  themselves  as  freely 
as  might  be  necessary  for  any  public  purpose,  but 


OTIS'S  MAXIM  117 

they  felt  keenly  that  any  attempt  to  tax  them  under 
a  law  made  by  a  parliament  in  which  they  had  no 
representative  was  in  the  nature  of  an  unjust  oppres 
sion.  They  realized  also  that  this  effort  of  the  new 
king  was  in  fact  an  attempt  to  reduce  them  to  abject 
and  helpless  subjection  to  a  government  which  was 
foreign  to  themselves.  It  would  not  have  done  for 
them  to  contend  openly  for  the  right  to  smuggle 
goods.  But  in  Otis's  splendid  phrase  that  "  taxation 
without  representation  is  tyranny  "  they  had  a  win 
ning  war  cry,  and  from  that  hour  forth  they  made 
the  most  of  it. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  England  was 
not  a  free,  self-governing  land  at  that  time  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  understand  those  terms  in  our 
day.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  "  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,"  even  in 
England.  There  was  a  parliament,  to  be  sure,  and 
theoretically,  the  House  of  Commons,  representing 
the  people,  was  supreme  in  all  affairs  of  government 
by  virtue  of  its  control  of  all  revenues  and  expendi 
tures. 

But  the  House  of  Commons  did  not  represent 
the  people.  In  the  first  place  large  numbers  of 
the  people  were  not  permitted  to  vote  at  all.  In 
the  second  place,  representation  was  grossly  and 


118  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

even  grotesquely  unequal.  The  populations  of  the 
greatest  manufacturing  and  trading  cities  of  the  land 
were  represented  scarcely  at  all — or  absolutely  not 
at  all,  while  each  of  the  great  aristocratic  universities 
was  permitted  to  elect  members  of  Parliament. 

Worse  still  there  were  "  rotten  boroughs  "  and 
"  pocket  boroughs  "  all  over  England,  each  author 
ized  to  elect  legislators  without  any  reference  what 
ever  to  its  population. 

A  "  rotten  borough  "  was  one  in  which  there  was 

no  longer  any  pop 
ulation,  or  one  in 
which  the  popula 
tion  had  dwindled 
to  a  mere  handful. 
Some  of  the  rotten 
boroughs  had  in 
fact  sunk  into  the 
sea  and  no  longer 
existed  even  terri- 

Massachusetts  three-penny  bill.  torially.         Yet     for 

each  of  them  some  lord  of  the  manor  was  entitled 
by  law  to  elect  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
while  the  people  of  the  great  manufacturing  and 
commercial  cities  were  left  unrepresented  or  inade 
quately  represented. 


OTIS'S    MAXIM  110 

The  "  pocket  boroughs "  were  those  in  which 
only  a  few  people  resided,  the  few  people  being  the 
tenants  and  dependents  of  some  great  landlord. 
The  landlord  could  determine  for  himself  what 
tools  of  his  own  should  be  sent  to  Parliament  from 
the  pocket  boroughs  he  controlled,  and  his  de 
pendents,  voting  without  secrecy  or  a  ballot,  of 
course  elected  his  candidates. 

There  were  still  other  ways  in  which  the  British 
government  at  that  time  was  not  representative  of 
the  British  people  ;  but  the  facts  cited  are  sufficient 
for  illustration. 

All  these  anomalies  of  unequal  representation 
grew  out  of  the  dominant  idea  of  that  time,  and 
were  •  logical  enough  as  corollaries  from  it.  That 
dominant  idea  was,  not  that  all  the  people  should 
equally  participate  in  government,  but  that  for  the 
sake  of  all  alike  the  best  and  safest  classes  should 
rule.  The  great  families  that  owned  the  land  and 
represented  property,  the  universities,  representing 
education  and  the  church,  and  the  aristocrats,  who 
controlled  rotten  boroughs  and  pocket  boroughs, 
who  represented  England's  ruling  class,  were 
thought  to  be  safer  custodians  of  political  power 
than  the  great,  penniless  and  often  ignorant  masses 
could  be.  And  so  as  the  masses  might  at  any  time 


120  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

outnumber  the  more  safely  selected  classes,  voting 
and  representation  in  Parliament  were  carefully  so 
restricted  as  to  give  the  ruling  class  secure  control  no 
matter  what  the  majority  of  the  people  might  desire. 

The  same  principle  prevailed  in  America  under 
varying  conditions.  In  most  of  the  colonies  there 
were  severe  restrictions  upon  voting  and  office  hold 
ing,  as  we  know.  In  the  Puritan  colonies  in  particu 
lar,  church  membership  was  a  requisite.  In  nearly  all 
the  colonies  a  belief  in  Christianity  was  imperatively 
demanded  as  a  qualification  for  the  suffrage.  In 
many  there  were  property  qualifications  also  insisted 
upon.  This  endured  indeed  in  some  of  the  states 
until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In 
Virginia,  until'  1850  every  man  who  owned  land  in 
more  than  one  county  was  entitled  to  vote  in  every 
county  in  which  he  had  a  holding.  So  jealously 
was  this  idea  guarded  that  the  voting  at  each  elec 
tion  was  continued  for  three  days  in  order  that 
every  landowner  might  ride  from  one  county  seat 
to  another  and  cast  all  his  votes. 

In  brief,  the  principle  of  class  representation 
rather  than  representation  by  mere  numbers  was 
very  generally  accepted  in  the  eighteenth  century  as 
a  necessary  safeguard  against  anarchy  and  misrule. 

But    the    Americans    had  another  and    a  deeper 


OTIS'S  MAXIM 


121 


,££  -"VJ 

ip ),££,- 

11 //,i,,; 


'ih          ll 


' 


h  ..... 


122  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

grievance.  The  millions  of  Englishmen  in  America 
were  not  represented  at  all  in  that  English  Parlia 
ment  which  made  laws  for  their  governance,  and  as 
sumed  to  tax  them,  to  regulate  their  commerce,  to 
restrict  their  manufactures  and  in  every  other  way 
subject  them  to  a  government  which  they  regarded 
as  completely  foreign  and  in  many  ways  as  inimical 
to  themselves. 

Neither  Massachusetts,  which  had  become  in 
effect  a  great  state,  nor  Virginia,  which  had  also  be 
come  a  powerful  commonwealth,  nor  Pennsylvania, 
nor  New  York,  nor  Carolina,  nor  any  other  of  the 
great,  populous,  and  powerful  American  colonies 
was  permitted  to  send  a  single  representative  to 
Parliament.  Not  any  of  them — not  all  of  them  put 
together  had  in  the  British  Parliament  even  so  much 
as  the  voice  of  a  rotten  borough  or  a  pocket  borough. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Americans,  while  still 
remaining  true  to  their  traditional  allegiance  to  the 
mother  country,  went  into  revolt  against  so  unjust 
a  government  as  this  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  they 
refused  to  pay  the  taxes  levied  upon  them  by  a 
foreign  power?  Would  they  not  have  proved 
themselves  unworthy  of  their  claim  to  be  English 
men  if  they  had  tamely  submitted  to  such  oppres 
sion  as  this  ? 


OTIS'S  MAXIM  123 

The  courts  issued  the  Writs  of  Assistance  simply 
because  the  law  required  them  to  do  so,  but  the 
paper  mandates  did  not  accomplish  their  purpose. 
At  the  door  of  every  house,  which  the  writs  au 
thorized  the  customs  officers  to  search,  there  stood 
a  resolute  man  with  a  gun  in  his  hand,  defending 
his  home  as  his  "  castle."  And  the  customs  of 
ficers,  caring  far  less  for  the  British  revenue  than 
for  the  safety  of  their  own  persons,  did  not  under 
take  to  force  their  way  past  those  alert  and  very 
belligerent  human  barriers — the  armed  Yankees. 

The  Writs  of  Assistance  had  been  sought  by  the 
king  and  his  ministers  not  chiefly  as  a  means  of 
collecting  revenue  but  mainly  as  a  method  of 
forcing  upon  the  colonies  and  their  people  the 
acceptance  of  the  theory  that  they  were  subject, 
absolutely  and  unquestioningly,  to  every  decree 
that  the  British  king  might  issue  and  every  act 
that  the  British  Parliament  might  adopt. 

Against  this  assertion  of  arbitrary  authority  the 
colonists  protested  with  vigorous  insistence  from 
the  beginning.  They  held  themselves  to  be  Eng 
lishmen  entitled  to  all  those  rights  which  English 
men  had  claimed  and  enjoyed  ever  since  the  barons 
at  Runnymede,  more  than  five  centuries  before, 
namely,  on  the  I5th  day  of  June,  1215,  had  com- 


124  LIFE  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

pelled  King  John  to  grant  the  great  charter  of 
Englishmen's  rights  and  liberties — that  Magna 
Charta  which  was  by  decree  of  the  will  of  the 
English  people  to  endure  for  all  time. 

The  rights  of  the  colonists  were  both  threatened 
and  invaded  by  the  policy  of  the  new  king  in  Eng 
land.  Their  resistance  to  the  invasion  was  instant, 
universal  and  determined.  Their  resentment  of 
the  threat  was  as  quick  as  is  the  response  of  gun 
powder  to  the  spark  that  ignites  it. 

There  were  other  arrows,  however  in  the  quiver 
of  the  reactionary  British  ministers  of  that  time  and 
they  essayed  to  use  them  against  the  Americans. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    REVOLT 

THE  colonists  were  still  sentimentally  loyal  to 
their  home  government  and  to  their  king  while 
practically  they  were  almost  continually  in 
revolt  against  the  wrongs  done  them  by  that  govern 
ment  and  that  king.  They  had  not  yet  begun  to 
think  of  independence  or  to  realize  the  fact  that  they 
had  built  up  here  thirteen  colonies  with  more  than 
two  and  a  half  millions  of  people  in  them,  who  had 
no  need  of  any  government  from  without  them 
selves.  They  still  clung  to  the  old  traditions  of 
king  and  country.  They  still  regarded  themselves 
as  colonists,  though  in  fact  they  had  built  up  pros 
perous  states  abundantly  capable  of  governing  and 
caring  for  themselves.  Such  assistance  as  they  had 
received  from  the  mother  country  in  the  French 
and  Indian  wars  was  more  than  offset  by  the  jaunty 
indifference  with  which  the  mother  country,  at  a 
critical  time  and  for  its  own  advantage,  had  given 
up  to  their  enemies  all  that  they  had  won  in  behalf 

125 


128  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

of  their  own  defence,  by  their  prowess,  their  heroism, 
and  their  endurance. 

They  had  at  last  reached  that  stage  in  their  his 
tory  in  which  any  attempt  of  a  government,  foreign 
to  themselves,  to  interfere  with  their  interests  or  to 
determine  their  affairs  was  met  with  quick  resent 
ment.  Loyalty  to  king  and  country  was  well 
enough  in  a  sentimental  way,  but  the  spirit  of  the 
colonists — most  of  whom  had  been  born  and  bred 
in  this  country  and  had  never  dwelt  in  England — 
was  one  of  independence  and  self-assertion.  Loy 
alty  to  the  king  in  England  was 
regarded  as  the  duty  of  every  man, 
but  at  the  same  time  every  man 
felt  that  the  king  was  under  a  re 
ciprocal  obligation  to  behave  him 
self,  that  he  must  keep  his  hands 
off  colonial  affairs.  The  send- 
ment  of  self-government  had  grown  by  what  it  had 
fed  upon  until  it  was  now  the  dominant  sentiment 
in  every  colony  north  and  south. 

In  a  general  way  the  interests  of  the  colonies 
were  not  at  all  identical.  New  England,  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania  were  largely  engaged  in  commerce. 
The  southern  colonies  were  almost  wholly  engaged 
in  agriculture.  Between  these  two  parts  of  the 


BEGINNINGS  OF  REVOLT  127 

country  there  was  little  in  common  except  that 
Pennsylvania  also  had  developed  large  agricultural 
interests,  and  it  seems  possible,  as  we  review  the 
history  of  that  time,  that  if  the 
English  government  had  been 
wise  in  its  generation  the  colo 
nies  north  and  south  might  never 
have  become  united  in  their  in 
terests  and  in  their  determination 

tO       resist      English       Oppression.  Virginia  shilling 

The  grievances  in  New  England  (reverse)' 

were  no  grievances  at  all  in  the  Carolinas  and  in 
Virginia,  until  a  stupid  blunder  on  the  part  of  the 
British  minister  made  them  such. 

This  blunder  began  with  the  determination  of  the 
British  minister  to  send  ten  thousand  soldiers  to 
America.  These  troops  were  to  be  quartered  upon 
the  people  after  the  first  year  of  their  service  in  this 
country,  and  to  be  paid  and  supported  out  of 
money  raised  by  taxes  levied  upon  the  colonies,  this 
under  authority  of  the  British  Parliament  in  which 
the  colonies  were  not  represented.  The  pretence 
upon  which  these  soldiers  were  to  -  be  sent  out  was 
that  of  defending  the  colonies  against  their  enemies. 
But  the  colonies  had  no  enemies  at  that  time.  The 
French  power  had  been  completely  broken  and  the 


12S  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

Spanish  in  the  far  south  were  no  longer  belligerent 
or  in  any  way  dangerous.  There  remained  only  the 
Indians,  with  whom  the  colonists  felt  themselves 
entirely  competent  to  deal.  There  was  absolutely 
no  defensive  need  for  the  sending  out  of  these  ten 
thousand  British  regulars  and  the  colonists  were  not 
deceived  by  the  pretence.  They  understood  from 
the  beginning  that  these  soldiers  were  sent  out  to 
overawe  the  colonists  themselves,  and  to  hold  them 
in  subjection — to  enforce  taxes  and  laws  made  by  a 
parliament  in  which  they  had  no  voice  or  vote. 

By  way  of  compelling  the  colonists  to  pay  for  the 
support  of  these  troops  who  were  sent  out  to  op 
press  them,  the  English  Parliament  enacted  a  stamp 
act.  That  act  required  that  all  notes,  deeds,  con 
veyances,  bills  of  sale,  and  all  other  legal  documents 
of  every  kind  should  be  written  upon  stamped  paper 
on  which  a  tax  had  been  paid.  It  decreed  that  any 
note,  bill  of  sale,  conveyance,  or  other  legal  docu 
ment  not  written  upon  such  stamped  paper  should 
be  void  and  of  no  effect.  It  decreed  also  that  all 
newspapers  printed  in  the  colonies  should  be  printed 
upon  stamped  paper,  each  sheet  thus  paying  a  tax 
to  Great  Britain. 

The  American  people  have  twice  demonstrated 
the  fact  that  they  have  no  rooted  objection  to  the 


BEGINNINGS  OF  REVOLT  129 

payment  of  stamp  taxes  for  the  purpose  of  raising 
revenue,  when  such  taxes  are  levied  by  a  Congress 
consisting  of  their  own  representatives.  Twice,  in 
order  to  meet  war  expenses,  they  have  willingly  paid 
stamp  taxes,  not  only  upon  deeds,  conveyances  and 
legal  documents  but  upon  express  receipts,  receipts 
for  money,  telegraph  messages  and  everything  else 
of  the  kind.  There  is  this  radical  difference,  how 
ever,  between  the  two  cases.  When  their  own  Con 
gress,  representing  themselves  and  acting  in  their 
name  and  by  their  authority  has  determined  upon 
a  system  of  stamp  taxation  by  way  of  meeting  the 
needed  expenses  of  the  government,  the  American 
people  have  raised  no  protest  and  made  no  com 
plaint  whatever.  They  have  felt  that  they  were 
merely  paying  their  own  ex 
penses;  but  in  that  earlier  time 
when  a  foreign  government  seek 
ing  to  oppress  them  sent  out  a 
standing  army  to  accomplish  this 
purpose  and  undertook  to  make 
them  pay  for  the  maintenance  R°sa  Americana  penny. 
of  that  army  by  stamp  taxes,  levied  under  a  law 
which  was  enacted  by  a  parliament  in  which  they 
had  absolutely  no  representation  whatsoever,  they 
went  immediately  into  revolt. 


130  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Some  historians  have  pointed  out  that  a  year 
before  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  the  British  min 
ister,  Grenville,  invited  the  colonists  to  suggest  any 
other  means  of  raising  the  money  which  might  be 
more  agreeable  to  themselves.  But  their  objection 
was  not  to  the  particular  form  of  the  tax  but  to  the 
tax  itself.  They  saw  no  good  reason  why  they 
should  be  taxed  by  any  method 
for  the  purpose  of  keeping  troops 
in  America  to  oppress  and  over 
awe  themselves. 

It   was   the    Stamp    Act   that 
quickly  brought  the  North  and 

Rosa  Americana  penny      South    into    a    Compact   for  reSO- 

lute  union  in  resistance  to  British 
aggression.  The  injustice  of  that  act  was  felt  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  and  it  was  instantly  resented 
everywhere. 

Reduced  to  its  lowest  terms  the  situation  was 
this  :  The  British  government  required  the  Ameri 
can  people  to  pay  and  support  an  army  of  ten  thou 
sand  men  sent  out  to  this  country,  as  they  firmly 
believed,  solely  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  peo 
ple  of  this  country  in  subjection  to  British  authority 
and  of  enforcing  navigation  and  other  laws  which 
were  obnoxious  to  them.  This  the  American  peo- 


BEGINNINGS  OF  REVOLT  131 

pie,  North  and  South,  and  in  all  the  middle  colonies 
as  well,  resolutely  refused  to  do.  The  soldiers  might 
come,  of  course,  but  the  colonists  absolutely  and 
unanimously  refused  to  contribute  one  cent  for  their 
support  as  an  overawing  force  in  America. 

Even  the  proposal  of  this  Stamp  Act  in  Parlia 
ment,  before  it  had  been  enacted,  created  a  very 
great  excitement  all  over  America.  The  Americans 
sent  protests  and  humble  petitions  to  the  king  in 
which  they  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  they 
were  Englishmen  possessed  of  all  the  traditional 
rights  of  Englishmen  and  with  respectful  intimations 
that  they  were  disposed  to  insist  upon  those  rights. 

No  heed  was  paid  to  these  protests,  however. 
The  English  administration  of  that  time  had  made 
up  its  mind  to  enforce  this  measure  and  it  proceeded 
without  regard  to  the  sentiment  or  the  sense  of  the 
American  people.  In  March,  1765,  the  Stamp  Act 
became  a  law. 

It  was  doubly  offensive  to  the  Americans.  It 
not  only  provided  for  the  collection  of  what  they 
held  to  be  an  unjust  tax  for  what  they  regarded  as 
an  unjust  and  oppressive  purpose,  but  it  went  fur 
ther  and  enacted  that  Americans  who  should  violate 
the  terms  of  the  law  might  be  tried  in  a  court  with 
out  a  jury  if  the  prosecuting  officer  so  desired. 


132  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Here  was  a  direct  and  exceedingly  offensive  viola 
tion  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen  secured  under 
English  traditions.  Here,  too,  was  a  new  ground 
for  American  resistance  to  British  authority,  a  new 
occasion  for  revolt,  a  new  basis  of  revolution. 

Throughout  the  land  James  Otis's  cry  went  up 
that  "  Taxation  without  representation  is  tyranny  " 
and  throughout  the  land  the  determination  to  resist 
and  defeat  this  Stamp  Act  was  universal  and  reso 
lute.  Here  and  there  the  act  was  resisted  violently 
by  mobs  of  angry  citizens.  A  mob  in  New  York 
burned  the  royal  governor's  coach  and  tore  down 
the  theater  which  was  regarded  as  the  pleasure  house 
of  the  wealthy  who  sympathized  with  British  pre 
tensions. 

In  Boston  the  resistance  took  even  more  violent 
forms.  There  the  people  assailed  the  revenue  offi 
cers  themselves  and  obliged  them  to  take  refuge  on 
board  the  war  vessels  in  the  harbor.  At  Charles 
ton  in  South  Carolina  the  stamped  paper  sent  out 
for  use  was  stored  in  Fort  Johnson.  The  people 
promptly  assailed  Fort  Johnson,  captured  it,  took 
the  stamped  paper,  packed  it  into  bundles  and  sent 
it  back  to  England. 

By  reason  of  this  resistance  not  one  single  stamp 
and  not  one  single  sheet  of  stamped  paper  was  sold 


BEGINNINGS  OF  REVOLT  133 

in  all  America  except  in  the  case  of  a  few  ship  clear 
ances  at  Savannah.  Not  one  deed  or  document 
was  written  upon  such  paper.  And  no  court  in  all 
the  country  from  that  time  forward  consented  to 
treat  any  document  as  void  by  reason  of  its  lack  of 
the  British  stamp. 

In  effect,  of  course,  this  was  revolution  and  war, 
but  the  time  had  not  yet  come  when  Revolution 
and  War  should  put  on  their  uniforms,  shoulder 
their  guns,  and  take  the  field.  By  sheer  force  of 
obstinate  resistance  the  Americans  had  beaten  the 
British  government  in  its  most  carefully  planned 
schemes  for  reducing  them  to  subjection,  and  all 
the  expenses  of  that  army  of  ten  thousand  men  sent 
out  to  overawe  the  colonists  and  to  enforce  obnox 
ious  laws,  were  paid  for  by  the  taxpayers  in  England 
and  not  by  the  Americans. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

COLONIAL    WEALTH  AND    LUXURY 

BY  this  time  a  good  deal  of  wealth  had  been 
accumulated  in  the  colonies.  A  part  of  this 
wealth  had  been  brought  out  from  England 
but  by  far  the  greater  part  of  it  had  been  created  in 
the  colonies  themselves.  In  the  more  southern  of 
them  and  in  Pennsylvania  the  fields  had  been  richly 
fruitful  from  the  first  and  their  products  had  made 
of  their  possessors  rich  men,  or  men  at  least  well- 
to-do  according  to  the  standards  of  that  time. 
In  the  southern  colonies  this  wealth  was  mainly 
represented  by  the  ownership  of  vast  plantations 
each  independent  of  all  the  rest  and  each  providing 
for  itself  as  if  it  had  been  a  sovereign  domain. 

In  the  middle  colonies  and  in  New  England  the 
conditions  were  very  different.  In  Pennsylvania 
and  in  New  Jersey  the  fields  were  fruitful,  while  in 
New  England,  where  the  majority  were  still  farmers 
in  spite  of  the  sterility  of  the  soil,  the  fisheries  and 
commerce  yielded  a  great  return  to  those  enterpris- 
134 


COLONIAL  WEALTH  AND  LUXURY   135 


Nelson  mansion. 


136  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

ing  men  who  lived  in  that  part  of  the  country.  But 
in  New  England  agriculture  was  only  meagerly  prof 
itable,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  people  of  that 
region  lived  more  and  more  in  towns  and  villages, 
drawing  their  revenues  from  the  sea  by  means  of 
the  fisheries  and  also  by  means  of  that  great  com 
merce  which  they  had  built  up  with  ships  that  sailed 
to  all  parts  of  the  earth. 

In  the  South  there  were  almost  no  cities  of  con 
sequence.  The  principal  southern  city  was  Charles 
ton  and  that  was  scarcely  greater  in  population  than 
any  one  of  hundreds  of  villages  is  in  our  time. 
It  was  a  seat  of  social  distinction  of  course.  Those 
planters  who  were  able  to  indulge  themselves  were 
apt  to  have  town  houses  in  Charleston,  where  they 
sumptuously  entertained  their  friends  and  where  a 
very  graceful  and  gracious  social  life  prevailed.  But 
their  energies  were  chiefly  expended  in  the  conduct 
of  their  plantations  and  the  great  plantation  houses 
were,  after  all,  the  chief  centers  of  social  inter 
course. 

There  were  no  large  cities  in  the  South  simply 
because  there  was  no  need  of  large  cities.  A  little 
city  like  Charleston  furnished  room  enough  for 
the  merchants  of  that  time  to  act  as  factors  for  the 
planters,  receiving  their  products,  shipping  them  to 


COLONIAL  WEALTH  AND  LUXURY    137 

various  markets  and  in  return  furnishing  the  planters 
with  whatsoever  they  needed  for  the  support  of  both 


Interior  of  Rosewell  Manor. 


138  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  blacks  and  the  whites  upon  their  plantations. 
For  the  rest  the  plantation  house  was  a  great  center 
of  hospitality  and  enjoyment. 

In  the  North  the  conditions  were  so  far  different 
that  there  was  even  thus  early  a  strong  tendency  to 
the  concentration  of  population  in  cities  and  towns. 
Salem  in  Massachusetts  was  a  prosperous,  although 
not  a  large  city.  Boston,  New  York  and  Phila 
delphia,  by  reason  of  their  commerce,  rapidly  grew 
into  consequence  as  commercial  cities.  Other 
towns,  like  Gloucester,  grew  rich  upon  the  fishing 
and  whaling  industries.  Baltimore — in  the  middle 
region — became  an  important  port  and  a  seat  of 
elaborate  social  life. 

Philadelphia  soon  became  the  leading  city  in  the 
union,  so  far  as  population  was  concerned.  Boston 
became  the  leading  city  in  commerce  and  in  wealth, 
with  New  York  as  a  close  rival. 

There  was  some  manufacturing  in  all  the  colonies, 
but  Massachusetts  and  her  dependencies  quickly 
outrivaled  all  the  rest  in  this  department  of  industry. 
The  waterfalls  there  furnished  power  that  cost  noth 
ing,  except  a  trifle  in  its  adaptation  to  use  by  the 
construction  of  water  wheels,  dams  and  sluiceways. 
There  were  sawmills  in  Massachusetts  and  in  some 
of  the  other  colonies  long  before  the  first  sawmill 


COLONIAL  WEALTH  AND  LUXURY   139 

was  set  up  in  England.     These  cheapened  the  cost 
of  lumber  and  with  it  the  cost  of  building. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  trees  of  very 
large  size  grew  in  unlimited  abundance  in  all  the 
colonies  and  that  they  stood  distinctly  in  the  way 


Water  mill. 

of  the  development  of  agriculture.  To  get  rid  of 
them  was  the  first  problem  and  this  was  often 
solved  simply  by  cutting  them  down,  chopping 
them  up  into  logs,  rolling  the  logs  together  and 
burning  them.  But  the  shrewd  intelligence  of  the 
colonists,  after  the  introduction  of  saw-mills,  led  to  a 


140  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

better  use  for  the  timber  that  must  be  destroyed  in 
in  order  to  open  fields.  The  saw-mills  were  kept 
busy  converting  into  boards  and  planks  and  tim 
bers  the  trees  that  must  otherwise  have  been  de 
stroyed  by  fire  in  order  to  make  way  for  the  corn, 
and  wheat,  and  everything  else  that  fields  in  Amer 
ica  might  produce. 

The  water  power  was  also  turned  to  other  manu 
facturing  uses,  for  in  spite  of  all  Brit 
ish  laws  to  the  contrary,  the  colonists 
were  quick  to  appreciate  their  oppor 
tunities  and  alert  in  making  for  them 
selves  all  things  of  use  that  they  could 
make  more  cheaply  than  they  could 
import  them.  They  set  up  tanner- 

Costumeof.          r          ,  .  r     •»  - 

Thomas  Hancock.  ies  for  the  conversion  of  skins  into 
Black  velvet  coat,  leather.  They  manufactured  cloths 

\v  a  is  t  c  o  a  t     a  n  d       r          ,     ,  .      ,  ,  ,  ,  ,     , 

breeches  (about    °f  Such   kmds  aS  the7  COuld  and  the7 

1755)-  even  established  paper  mills  to  meet 

the  needs  of  the  printing  presses  which  had  been 
set  up  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  In  brief, 
the  colonists  were  little  by  little  making  themselves 
industrially  independent  of  Great  Britain  long  before 
the  thought  of  political  independence  entered  their 
minds. 

The  colonists  were  learning  more  and  more  rapidly 


COLONIAL  WEALTH  AND  LUXURY    141 

the  lesson  of  living  within  themselves  and  upon  their 
own  resources.  They  were  growing  more  and  more 
by  natural  processes  into  an  independent  nationality 
of  thought  and  feeling  which  could  only  mean,  in 
the  end,  independent  nationality  in  fact. 

But  with  the  rapid  increase  of  wealth  and  the  col 
lection  of  men  and  women  into  cities,  which  for  their 
time  were  deemed  large,  but  which 
would  be  scarcely  more  than  vil 
lages  in  our  time,  there  naturally 
developed  a  tendency  to  fashion 
and  luxury.  Balls  and  routs  and 
dances  were  given,  at  which  colonial 
dames  arrayed  themselves  as  gor 
geously  as  the  fashionable  women 
of  London  might  have  done.  Costume  of  Thomas 

Boylston.        White 

Theaters    were    opened    and    even  satin  waistcoatf  goid 
the  art  instincts  of  the  people  were  trimming     (about 
gratified    by  importations  of  paint 
ings  and  statuary  from  the  Old  World. 

It  was  a  period  of  fine  dressing  both  in  England  and 
in  this  country,  and  the  affectation  of  finery  was  seen 
among  men  who  had  the  means  with  which  to  in 
dulge  it  quite  as  much  as  it  appeared  among  women. 
Men  of  that  time,  who  were  able  to  afford  it,  dressed 
in  rich  garments,  faced  with  white  satin  and  trimmed 


142  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

with  lace  or  gold  embroidery.  Men  with  smaller, 
but  sufficient  means,  dressed  less  expensively  but 
still  in  the  same  fashions.  Blue  cloths,  velvet  coats, 
satin  vests,  brass  buttons,  cocked  hats  and  lace  frilled 
shirt-fronts  and  wrist-bands  were  the  ordinary  dress 
of  the  well-to-do  even  in  a  country  whose  people 
had  been  engaged  for  three  or  four  generations  in 
conquering  a  wilderness  and  whose  religious  teach 
ings  had  been  those  of  asceticism. 

The  dress  of  the  wealthier  colonial  dames  at  that 
time  was  not  only  as  rich  as  that 
of  their  English  cousins,  but  was 
in  fact  identical  with  it.  There 
were  no  fashion  plates,  to  be  sure, 
to  teach  the  colonists  how  their 
clothes  should  be  designed,  for  the 

J.-1U111          UVJlLICtlt         \JL  ||  .  .      . 

Mrs.  Simon  Stoddard  reason  that  cheaP  picture-making 
(about  1725).  Was  not  then  known.  But  every 

year  the  colonial  modistes — particularly  those  of 
Boston — imported  London  dolls,  completely  dressed 
in  the  latest  fashions,  and  the  well-to-do  women  of 
the  colonial  cities  flocked  to  see  and  study  these  il 
lustrations  of  the  fashion,  in  many  cases  paying  for 
the  privilege. 

The  plainer  people  everywhere  still  dressed  sim- 
and    mainly    in    homespun.      The    men   wore 


COLONIAL  WEALTH  AND  LUXURY   143 

leather  breeches  still,  finding  them  cheaper  and  more 
serviceable  than  cloth,  even  of  domestic  manufacture. 
And  luxury  did  not  stop  at  costly  dressing.  In 
some  of  the  wealthier  families,  both  north  and  south, 
there  were  solid  gold  tea  services, 
with  much  solid  silver  and  costly 
china  dinner  table  ware.  Fine  linen — 
at  that  time  very  costly — abounded. 
But  extravagance  in  dress  was  some 
what  mitigated  by  the  fact  that  fine 
clothes  could  be  and  were  worn  by  Quaker  bonnet. 
one  generation  after  another  till  they  were  worn  out. 
In  all  wills  of  that  time  we  find  bequests  or  costly 
garments  occupying  a  prominent  place. 

This  chapter  is  written  in  order  to  give  a  glimpse 
of  the  conditions  of  life  and  the  attitude  of  mind 
which  prevailed  among  the  colonists  at  the  time 
when  they  began  to  feel  themselves  slowly  approach 
ing  a  great  and  difficult  struggle  for  their  liberties. 
They  were  brave  men  and  true  and  mightily  strong, 
but  they  did  not  lack  the  vanities  which  are  com 
monly  regarded  as  fit  only  for  courtiers. 

A  simpler  conception  of  life  and  manners  came 
later  after  the  discipline  of  war  and  the  hardships  of 
a  struggle  for  independence  had  taught  the  Ameri 
cans  a  new  code  of  conduct. 


144  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


bfl 
C 

•a 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  ADVENT   OF    PATRICK  HENRY 

SO  far  as  material  interests  were  concerned  there 
was  little  in  common  between  the  northern,  the 
middle  and  the  southern  colonies.  New  Eng 
land  was  engaged  largely  in  commerce,  fishing,  whal 
ing  and  in  some  degree  in  manufacturing,  with  only 
a  limited  attention  to  farming  for  profit.  The  mid 
dle  colonies,  especially  Pennsylvania,  had  some  in 
terest  in  commerce  but  a  much  larger  one  in  agri 
culture.  The  South  was  almost  exclusively  agri 
cultural.  If  they  had  been  let  alone  these  various 
colonies  would  have  had  no  sufficient  interest  in 
common  to  bind  them  together  into  anything  that 
might  even  threaten  a  united  resistance  to  British 
authority.  But  they  were  not  let  alone. 

The  British  authorities  nagged  all  of  them,  and 
the  nagging  resulted  in  drawing  them  together  in  a 
common  spirit  of  resistance  to  oppression. 

Two  years  before  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed  an 
event  occurred  in  Virginia  which  stirred  the  populace 
J  145 


146  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

of  that  colony  as  deeply  as  all  the  colonies  were 
stirred  a  little  later  by  the  injustice  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  In  Virginia  the  English  church  was  established 
by  law  and  its  parsons  were  paid  by  taxes  levied 
upon  the  people,  whether  the  people  attended  that 
church  or  some  other. 

For  a  long  time,  as  we  know,'  tobacco  had  been 
the  customary  currency  of  Virginia  in  lieu  of  money. 
But  by  this  time  actual  money  had  in  some  degree 
found  its  way  into  the  colony  and  was  in  more  or 
less  use  there.  It  had  been  customary,  before  that 
time,  to  reckon  the  value  of  tobacco  at  twopence  a 
pound  and  at  that  rate  the  parsons'  salaries  had  been 
paid  in  that  commodity.  In  1758  there  had  been 
a  very  short  crop  of  tobacco  and  its  price  in  the 
market  was  enormously  enhanced  for  several  years 
afterward  by  this  scarcity.  The  people  therefore 
demanded  the  privilege  of  paying  the  parsons  in 
money  instead  of  tobacco,  reckoning  each  twopence 
as  the  equivalent  of  one  pound  of  the  tobacco  which 
they  had  before  paid.  This  the  parsons  resisted  as 
in  effect  a  measure  of  repudiation.  They  demanded 
their  full  measure  of  tobacco  notwithstanding  its 
enormously  enhanced  price.  In  view  of  these  cir 
cumstances  the  House  of  Burgesses  had  passed  an 
act,  in  1758,  by  which  the  people  were  authorized 


ADVENT  OF  PATRICK  HE.NRY          147 

to  pay  the  salaries  of  their  clergy  in  money  at  the 
traditional  rate  of  twopence  for  each  pound  of  to 
bacco  due  them. 

At  this  point  the  British  government  interfered. 
On  petition  of  the  parsons  the  king  vetoed  the  act, 
leaving  the  clergy  free  to  demand  their  pay  in  tobacco 
of  full  weight  notwithstanding  the  scarcity  and  the 

A 


k 


Rolling  tobacco  to  the  wharves. 

high  price  of  that  commodity.  The  Virginians  felt 
themselves  offended  and  affronted  by  British  inter 
ference,  precisely  as  Massachusetts  had  been  in 
other  cases.  The  Virginians,  like  the  men  of 
Massachusetts,  resented  and  resisted  the  interference. 

Notwithstanding  the  king's  veto,  the  House  of 
Burgesses  insisted  upon  it  that  the  parsons  should 
take  their  pay  in  money  at  the  traditional  price  of 
tobacco  and  should  not  be  privileged  to  demand  the 
actual  tobacco  in  a  time  of  scarcity. 

One  of  the  parsons  brought  suit  to  recover,  in 
lieu  of  his  money  salary,  sixteen  thousand  pounds 


148  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

of  tobacco,  which  was  worth  many  times  more  than 
the  salary  had  ever  before  amounted  to. 

The  people  of  his  parish  employed  in  their  behalf 
a  young  lawyer  named  Patrick  Henry,  who  had  not 
as  yet  come  into  prominence  but 
who  was  presently  destined  to 
become  one  of  the  great  figures 
of  the  rapidly  approaching  revo 
lution.  This  "  Parsons'  Cause," 
as  it  was  called,  gave  him  his 
opportunity.  In  a  burst  of  elo 
quence  such  as  had  never  before 
been  heard  in  Virginia  he  argued 
Patrick  Henry.  his  cause  upon  high  interna 
tional  grounds,  and  upon  high  grounds  of  natural 
and  inherent  human  right.  He  contended  that  the 
king's  interference  with  the  right  of  the  colonists  to 
regulate  their  own  affairs  in  their  own  way  was  a 
gross  usurpation  of  power  and  an  infringement  of 
the  rights  of  the  colonists  as  Englishmen.  He 
said  in  the  course  of  his  argument  that  "  A  king,  by 
disallowing  acts  of  a  salutary  nature,  from  being  the 
father  of  his  people  degenerates  into  a  tyrant  and 
forfeits  all  rights  to  his  subjects'  obedience."  This 
was  a  daring  utterance,  but  it  met  with  popular  ap 
proval  and  applause. 


ADVENT  OF  PATRICK  HENRY 


149 


MILLIGAN'S 


The  law  was  clearly  with  the  parsons  and  ob 
viously  the  court  was  bound  to  rule  in  their  favor. 
But  so  greatly  had  Henry's  eloquence  impressed 
both  the  judge  and  the  jurors  that  the  verdict  ren 
dered,  while  it  recognized  the  legal  right  of  the 
clergymen,  awarded  them  only  one  penny  as  dam 
ages  for  the  violation  of  that  right. 

This  was  the  tocsin  of  Revolution  in  Virginia. 
Here  was  an  open  assertion 
of  the  superiority  of  colo 
nial  right  over  kingly  rule. 
Here,  as  clearly  as  in  James 
Otis's  war-cry,  that  "  Taxa 
tion  without  representation 
is  tyranny,"  the  sentiment 
of  the  American  people  was 
expressed  in  phrases  suffici 
ently  plain,  and  sufficiently 
clear  as  to  their  meaning, 
to  give  them  popular  currency,  and  to  inflame  the 
popular  mind. 

This  victory  for  colonial  rights  was  in  itself  im 
portant  as  a  part  of  the  events  which  constituted  the 
progress  of  that  time ;  but  it  was  even  more  impor 
tant  in  another  way.  It  directed  attention  to  Patrick 
Henry  and  brought  him  upon  the  stage  of  public  af- 


Pi 
O 

H 

CO 


I 


z; 

CO 


ZOHS 


Advertisement  from  the 
"  New  York  Weekly  Gazette 
and  Post-Boy"  (1765). 


150  LIFE    IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

fairs,  where  his  eloquence,  his  abounding  common 
sense  and  his  extraordinary  courage  were  destined  to 
make  him  presently  one  of  the  most  influential  hu 
man  forces  that  were  at  that  time  acting  together  to 
bring  on  the  American  Revolution  with  all  its  las 
ting  consequences  of  human  liberty. 

No  one  can  study  the  history  of  that  time  with 
out  seeing  clearly  that  the  victory  in  the  "  Parsons' 
Cause  "  was  in  itself  a  matter  of  utter  insignificance 
as  compared  with  the  great  work  for  liberty  which 
it  gave  Patrick  Henry  opportunity,  a  little  later,  to 
do. 

In  view  ofthe  position  he  had  won  in  the  Par 
sons'  Cause,  Patrick  Henry  was  presently  elected 
to  the  House  of  Burgesses.  At  the  time  of  his  elec 
tion  it  was  clearly  understood  that  the  people  chose 
him  for  their  representative  in  full  conviction  that 
he,  better  than  any  other,  would  express  their  grow 
ing  sentiment  of  hostility  to  British  aggression.  He 
met  this  expectation  fully  and  completely. 

At  that  time  the  Stamp  Act  was  the  chief  subject 
of  American  antagonism  and  Henry  assumed  that 
in  one  way  or  another  a  discussion  of  it  would  be 
precipitated  in  the  House  of  Burgesses.  In  this 
he  was  disappointed.  Nobody  brought  the  matter 
to  the  front,  and  so  Henry,  young  man  and  new 


ADVENT  OF  PATRICK  HENRY         151 

member  that  he  was,  decided  to  do  this  public  duty 
himself.  He  arose  in  his  place  one  day  and  offered 
a  set  of  six  resolutions  which  he  asked  the  House 
of  Burgesses  to  adopt. 

These  resolutions  were  couched  in  the  boldest, 
simplest,  and  most  effective  language.  They  asserted 
without  equivocation  the  right  of  the  people  of  Vir 
ginia  to  govern  themselves.  They  asserted  that  no 
power  on  earth  could  lawfully  levy  a  tax  upon  the 
people  of  Virginia  without  their  own 
consent.  In  brief,  these  resolutions 
constituted  a  sort  of  Declaration  of 
I ndependence.  Their  meaning  was 
the  same  as  that  which  Jefferson  at 
another  time  expressed  when  he 
said  that  the  Parliament  of  Great 

T>   •      •       i       i  •    i,  i  Costume   of    Peter 

Britain   had  no  more  right  to  make  _       •,     Tr  i 

Faneuil.     Velvet  coat, 

laws  for  the  government  of  Virginia  cloth  waistcoat,  velvet 

i  ITT  r     -n  •        ruffles  (about  1740). 

than  the  House  or  Burgesses  in 
Virginia  had  to  make  laws  for  the  government  of 
England.  They  declared  that  the  General  As 
sembly  of  the  Colony  alone  had  "  the  right  and 
power  to  lay  taxes  and  imposts  upon  the  inhabi 
tants  !  " 

The   introduction    of   these    resolutions    by   this 
young  man,  newly  elected  to  the   House  and  only 


152  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

twenty-nine  years  of  age,  shocked  and  startled  the 
conservatives  of  that  body  into  a  half  frightened 
opposition.  If  the  matter  had  been  put  to  a  vote 
without  debate  the  probability  seems  to  be  that 
Henry's  resolutions  would  have  been  voted  down 
as  something  like  flat  treason.  But  Henry,  having 
introduced  his  resolutions,  made  a  speech  in  behalf 
of  them,  which,  Thomas  Jefferson  declared,  sur 
passed  anything  he  had 
ever  heard  in  the  way 
of  eloquence.  It  was 
in  the  course  of  this 
speech  that  Henry 
openly  gave  warning  of 
danger  to  the  British 
king,  pronouncing  the 
famous  words  "  Caesar 
had  his  Brutus,  Charles 
the  First  his  Cromwell, 
and  George  the  Third  " 

Windsor  chair.     Facsimile  of  a  cut  . 

in  the    «  New    York    Weekly  Gazette    at  that  point  the  pre- 

and  Postboy,"  1765.  siding      officer      inter 

rupted  the  orator  with  the  cry  of  "  treason  !  "  and 
that  cry  was  echoed  by  many  others  in  the  House. 
It  did  not  daunt  the  bold  young  orator  and  patriot. 
He  waited  until  the  tumult  subsided  and  then  fin- 


ADVENT  OF  PATRICK  HENRY         153 

ished  his  sentence  with  the  words  "  may  profit  by 
their  example,"  adding,  "  if  this  be  treason  make  the 
most  of  it." 

At  last  the  American  sentiment  had  found  a  lea 
der  bold  enough  and  able  enough  to  give  expression 
to  it  in  words  that  breathed  and  burned.  Here  at 
last  was  a  man  who  was  brave  enough  to  tell  the 
truth  even  to  a  king.  Here  at  last  was  a  man  in 
Virginia  as  daring  and  as  capable  as  James  Otis  and 
Samuel  Adams  were  in  Massachusetts — a  man  who 
knew  the  hidden  thought  of  the 
people  around  him  and  who  dared 
speak  it  out  loud.  In  spite  of  the 
instinctive  and  conservative  opposi 
tion  which  the  introduction  of  the 
resolutions  had  stirred  up,  Henry's 
speech  so  far  influenced  the  House 
of  Burgesses  that  five  of  his  resolu-  (about  1745). 
tions,  which  had  been  denounced  as  treasonable, 
were  adopted,  although  one  of  them  was  carried  by 
the  slender  majority  of  a  single  vote. 

"  And  the  people  said  Amen."  When  the  reso 
lutions — all  six  of  them — were  published,  the  popu 
lar  response  was  quick,  excited,  angry.  Those  reso 
lutions  fully  expressed  the  popular  thought  and 
reflected  the  popular  determination.  From  that 


154  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

hour  resistance  to  the  stamp  tax  was  open,  deter 
mined,  inflexible.  The  enforcement  of  that  law  in 
Virginia  became  at  once  as  hopelessly  impossible  as 
it  had  become  in  Massachusetts  ;  and  the  other  col 
onies  were  accustomed  at  that  time  to  follow  the 
lead  of  the  two  dominant  ones. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  when  Patrick  Henry 
thus,  by  his  eloquence,  inflamed  the  public  mind  of 
Virginia  and  the  other  colonies  against  the  funda 
mental  principle  of  English  aggression,  and  in  be 
half  of  the  doctrine  that  the  colonies  had  an  abso 
lute  right  to  govern  themselves,  these  thoughts 
were  new  to  most  men,  all  over  the  world. 

All  this  occurred  as  early  as  1765 — full  eleven 
years  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  written.  These 
events  were  educative.  One  after 
another  of  them — the  speech  of 
James  Otis  in  Boston,  the  speeches 
of  Patrick  Henry  in  Virginia,  and  a 
little  later  the  eloquence  of  Samuel 
Adams  in  Massachusetts,  not  only 

Samuel  Adams.  n  <  ,.  .  , 

reflected  public  sentiment,  but 
guided,  aroused  and  stimulated  it.  Little  by  little 
these  men  and  these  events  were  educating  the  pub 
lic  mind  in  America  to  the  thought  of  resistance  and 


ADVENT  OF  PATRICK  HENRY         155 

to  that  other  thought  of  still  greater  consequence 
— the  thought  of  independence. 

These  men,  and  such  as  they,  were  the  creators 
of  the  American  Revolution — the  founders  of  the 
republic  we  so  greatly  love  and  honor. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    ASSERTION    OF    AMERICAN    RIGHTS 

ONE  excellent  result  followed  from  the  Stamp 
Act.  Its  enactment  did  more  than  anything 
else  had  done  to  draw  the  colonies  together 

o 

and  to  induce  them  to  organize  for  a  united  resistance 
to  British  oppression.  The  feeling  was  growing  in 
the  colonies  that  however  diverse  their  interests 
and  their  industries  might  be,  they  had  in  this 
matter  a  common  cause.  And  it  was  beginning 
now  to  be  felt  among  them  that  if  that  cause  was 
to  be  won  they  must  in  some  form  act  together  for 
its  accomplishment. 

Accordingly  a  Congress  was  called  to  consider 
means  of  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act  and  to  all 
other  such  legislation.  That  Congress  met  in  New 
York  on  the  yth  of  October,  1765.  Nine  of  the  colo 
nies  sent  delegates  to  it  and  all  of  them  were  in  strong 
sympathy  with  its  purposes.  Among  the  delegates 
were  many  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  America. 

By  this  time  public  sentiment  had  been  so  far 
156 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN   RIGHTS    157 

aroused  in  behalf  of  the  American  right  of  self- 
government  that  the  Congress  adopted  a  Declara 
tion  of  Rights  and  Grievances,  which  was  almost  as 
emphatic  as  if  Patrick  Henry  or  James  Otis  had 
written  it.  It  distinctly  declared  that  the  right  to 
tax  the  American  people  existed  nowhere  on  earth 
except  in  legislative  bodies  elected  by  the  American 
people  and  commissioned  by  them  to  determine 
what  taxes  should  be  paid.  This  was  a  direct  chal 
lenge  to  the  British  king  and  Parliament  and  it  was 
meant  to  be  such. 

The  Congress  added  another  challenge.  British 
laws  and  decrees  concerning  Stamp  Act  enforcements 
prescribed  that  offenders  of  certain  classes  in  Amer 
ica  should  be  tried  in  courts  that  had  no  juries — 
courts  representing  only  the  king  and  the  British 
government.  This  Congress  distinctly  asserted  the 
right  of  every  Englishman  in  America,  when  ac 
cused  of  crime,  to  be  tried  by  a  jury  of  his  neigh 
bors  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  of  English 
liberty  which  had  existed  since  the  days  of  Magna 
Charta. 

There  was  still  among  the  Americans,  however,  a 
strong  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  king  and  to  the 
mother  country.  These  people  were  demanding 
their  rights,  not  as  Americans,  but  as  Englishmen  in 


158  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

America,  the  rights  that  all  Englishmen  in  England 
enjoyed.  They  were  not  seeking  separation  from 
the  mother  country,  nor  were  they  asking  anything 


An  old  New  York  mansion.     Van  Rensselaer  manor  house  at  Green- 
bush,  N.  Y. 

which  would   not  have  belonged  to  them  had  they 
remained  in  England.     Accordingly  they  added  to 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS    159 

these  bold  challenges  a  very  humble  expression  of 
loyalty  and  affection  for  the  king  and  expressed  both 
the  desire  and  the  purpose  to  remain  his  obedient 
subjects.  These  prayers  and  petitions  and  protes 
tations  of  loyalty  were  unheeded  by  the  king  and 
Parliament.  They  fell  upon  deaf  ears  and  dumb 
intelligences,  though  perhaps  they  had  some  influ 
ence  in  inducing  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 

But  it  was  the  utter  failure  of  British  officers  of 
every  kind  to  enforce  the  Stamp  Act  in  any  degree 
that  led  to  the  repeal  of  that  act  in  1766.  There 
was  attached  to  the  repealing  act  a  clause  declaring 
"  that  Parliament  has  power  to  legislate  for  the  colo 
nists  in  all  cases  whatsoever." 

This  was  a  challenge  in  return.  It  was  a  direct 
and  flatfooted  contradiction  of  the  fundamental  con 
tention  of  the  colonists.  It  claimed  for  the  British 
Parliament  precisely  that  right  and  power  which  the 
colonists  denied  and  against  which  they  were  in  re 
volt.  But  when  one's  adversary  surrenders,  the 
victor  is  apt  rather  to  laugh  at  than  to  resent  the 
mutterings  of  the  vanquished  ;  and  so  the  colonists, 
having  defeated  the  Stamp  Act  and  all  its  purposes, 
paid  little  attention  to  this  paper  declaration  of  the 
right  of  the  British  Parliament  to  legislate  for  them 
at  will.  That  claim  of  right  to  enact  legislation  for 


160  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

the  colonies  was  never  for  a  moment  abandoned  by 
the  king  or  Parliament. 

Behind  that  declaration  of  the  British  Parliament 
there  was  a  fixed  purpose  to  reduce  the  colonists  to 
subjection  in  one  way  or  another. 

The  Stamp  Act  had  been  an  internal  impost,  and, 
in  resisting  it,  its  character  as  such  had  been  strongly 
emphasized,  both  by  the  colonial  objectors  and  by 
Williani  Pitt  and  their  other  friends  in  England. 
The  special  contention  had  been  that  the  English 
Parliament  had  no  right  to  levy  any  internal  tax  in 
the  colonies.  By  implication,  at  least,  the  colonists 
and  their  friends  recognized  the  right  of  Parliament 
to  levy  external  taxes — import  duties  and  the  like. 

By  way  of  asserting  this  right  Parliament,  during 
the  next  year,  passed  a  series  of  acts,  known  as  the 
Townshend  Acts,  from  the  name  of  the  minister  who 
framed  them.  These  acts  levied  no  internal  taxes 
whatever.  But  they  imposed  import  duties  upon 
tea,  paint,  lead  and  paper  brought  into  the 
colonies  from  any  country.  In  order  to  collect 
these  duties  a  board  of  officers  was  sent  over  to 
Boston  to  supervise  the  traffic. 

The  colonists  resisted  these  imposts  precisely  as 
they  had  resisted  the  Stamp  Act,  and  with  no  less 
of  determination.  They  simply  would  not  pay  the 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS   161 

duties  thus  levied  by  a  Parliament  which  in  their 
view  had  no  right  to  tax  them  at  all.  The  Board 
of  Customs  at  Boston  had  no  means  of  executing 
the  laws  by  physical  force,  while  the  colonial  im 
porters  were  amply  strong  enough  to  defy  them  in 
the  absence  of  such  physical  force. 

Accordingly  the  British  government  sent  out  two 
regiments  of  soldiers  to  help  the  customs  officers 
and  to  overawe  the  importers.  The  people  of  Bos 
ton  were  required  to  receive  these  soldiers  into  their 
houses,  feed  and  lodge  them  without  pay,  and  thus 
to  bear  the  expense  of  their  own  oppression. 

Very  naturally  the  people  of  Boston — high  spirited 
and  already  excited  as  they  were — resented  this  ac 
tion  and  regarded  it  as  a  threat,  and  the  people  of 
the  other  colonies  heartily  joined  with  them  in  acts 
of  resistance. 

Massachusetts  and  Virginia  formally  protested 
against  the  oppression,  and  agreements  were  made 
throughout  the  colonies  not  to  import  articles  on 
which  the  English  government  thus  assumed  the 
right  to  levy  taxes.  Soon  all  the  Townshend  acts 
were  repealed,  except  that  a  small  duty  on  tea  was 
still  retained.  The  duty  thus  retained  was  so  small, 
indeed,  that  in  itself  it  was  not  worthy  of  considera 
tion  or  worth  resisting.  But  its  retention  was,  and 
K 


162  LIFE  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

was  meant  to  be,  a  renewed  assertion  of  the  right  of 
the  home  government  to  tax  the  colonies  without 
their  consent.  It  was  on  principle  that  the  colonists 
resisted,  resented,  and  refused  to  pay  this  insignificant 
tax.  The  struggle  over  this  matter  lasted  for  three 
years  with  continual  friction  and  with  frequent  con 
flict  between  the  troops  and  the  people.  Riot  after 
riot  occurred.  The  people  became  more  and  more 
violent  as  time  went  on  until,  at  last,  on  the  5th  of 
March,  1770,  a  mob  assailed  some  of  the  troops 
with  such  determination  that  the  soldiers,  acting  in 
self-defense,  as  they  claimed,  fired  upon  the  populace, 
killing  and  wounding  some  of  them. 

This  was  the  first  direct  act  of  war  against  the 
colonists  by  armed  forces  and  it  drove  the  people 
into  a  frenzy  of  angry  excitement.  The  event  is 
known  in  history  as  "  The  Boston  Massacre."  Im 
mediately  the  people  of  Boston  were  called  together 
in  a  town  meeting  numbering  three  thousand  able- 
bodied  men,  all  of  them  angry,  all  of  them  de 
termined,  and  all  of  them  ready  to  risk  everything 
for  their  rights.  Regardless  of  consequences  they  as 
serted  their  will  that  all  the  British  soldiers  should 
be  removed  from  Boston  at  once.  They  were  de 
termined  that  no  troops  should  longer  be  quartered 
in  the  city,  whether  upon  the  people  or  at  the  ex- 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS    163 

pense  of  the  British  government.  This  was  military 
rule  and  they  would  have  none  of  it. 

The  town  meeting  appointed  Samuel  Adams  to 
present  their  demand  to  the  Royal  Governor  and  his 
counsel,  and  there  to  insist  upon  it  in  the  name  of 
the  people  and  by  virtue  of  their  authority. 

Adams  was  a  relentless  patriot.  He  neither  of 
fered  nor  suggested  compromises  of  any  kind  or 
apologies  or  promises.  In  the  name  of  the  people 
of  Boston  and  of  Massachusetts,  he  simply  de 
manded  that  every  British  soldier  in  Boston  should 
be  removed  from  the  city  and  that  at  once.  When 
the  Governor  and  Council  hesitated  and  seemed 
disposed  to  dicker  for  terms,  Samuel  Adams,  with 
that  eloquence  which  always  flowed  from  his  lips 
when  he  had  the  cause  of  the  people  to  plead,  an 
swered,  "  There  are  three  thousand  men  in  yonder 
town  meeting ;  the  country  is  rising ;  the  night  is 
falling,  and  we  must  have  our  answer." 

This  was  a  challenge  which  admitted  of  no  argu 
ment,  no  discussion,  no  delay.  It  meant  in  effect, 
:c  Mr.  Governor,  you  can  order  the  removal  of  your 
troops  now,  or  you  can  leave  it  to  the  three  thousand 
men  in  that  town  meeting  to  expel  them  by  force." 
That  is  not  what  Samuel  Adams  said  in  words,  but 
it  is  what  his  eloquent  sentences  meant,  and  the 


164 


LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


Colonial  fragments  :    Door  trim  from  55  Broadway,  N.  Y. ;  George 
Washington's  chair ;  clock  at  57  Broadway. 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS    165 

Governor  clearly  understood  the  fact.  Accordingly 
the  order  was  instantly  issued  that  all  the  troops 
should  be  removed  at  once  from  Boston  and  sent  to 
an  island  in  the  harbor. 

All  these  events  were  but  details  in  a  struggle 
whose  scope  was  too  broad  and  too  vital  to  be  af 
fected  by  the  settlement  of  any  one  or  any  half 
dozen  incidents.  Between  the  British  assertion  of 
a  right  to  govern  and  control  the  colonists,  to  make 
laws  for  them,  and  to  tax  them  at  will,  and  the  op 
posing  assertion  on  the  part  of  the  colonists  of  their 
own  exclusive  right  to  govern  themselves,  to  tax 
themselves  and  to  make  all  laws  that  affected  them 
selves,  there  was  a  "great  gulf  fixed."  An  "irre 
pressible  conflict "  had  arisen  in  America  and  that 
conflict  if  not  settled  by  the  submission  of  one  or 
the  other  party  to  it  must  clearly  end  in  war. 

All  this  was  very  evident  to  the  wiser  of  the 
statesmen  of  England — to  such  men  as  Edmund 
Burke  and  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  to  Fox  and  to 
Walpole,  and  to  all  of  their  liberal  kind.  But  un 
fortunately  for  England  and  for  its  king,  such  men 
as  these  were  no  longer  dominant  in  the  English 
government.  Lord  North  became  premier  in  1770. 
He  was  a  cultivated  man,  a  witty  one,  and  a  per 
son  of  exceedingly  good  manners  ;  but  he  was  weak 


166  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

in  the  extreme  and  so  subservient  to  the  king  that 
Horace  Walpole  characterized  him  as  the  "  osten 
sible  "  minister,  meaning  that  the  king  in  fact  ex 
ercised  all  the  authority  of  the  premier. 

That  king  was  George  III,  a  man  obstinate,  con 
ceited,  brutal,  and  incipiently  insane.  He  was  deaf 
to  all  contentions  except  those  that  pleased  himself. 
His  attitude  as  a  ruler  was  that  his  will  was  law  and 
must  be  obeyed,  always  and  everywhere.  He  had 
made  up  his  mind  that  the  Americans  should  be  gov 
erned  by  his  decrees  and  he  had  sufficient  influence 
over  Parliament  to  secure  the  aid  of  that  body  in  his 
attempt  to  carry  out  this  programme  of  oppression. 

Accordingly,  although  the  authority  of  Parliament 
had  been  successfully  defeated  by  the  Americans  in 
their  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act,  again  in  their  resis 
tance  to  the  quartering  of  troops  in  Boston,  and  inci 
dentally  in  their  resistance  to  the  Townshend  Acts, 
George  III  devised  other  ways  of  nagging  the  Ameri 
cans.  It  was  a  peculiarly  stupid  thing  to  do.  To  a 
man  of  larger  intelligence  than  he  possessed  it  would 
have  been  obvious  that  the  Americans  were  on  the 
verge  of  a  revolt  and  were  strong  enough,  by  reason  of 
their  numbers,  of  their  geographical  remoteness,  and 
of  their  resources  to  make  that  revolt  a  dangerous  one 
to  the  British  power.  To  a  mind  less  dull  and  ob- 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS    167 

stinate  than  his  it  would  have  been  clear  that  the 
time  had  come  for  a  policy  of  careful  conciliation. 
But  to  George  III  none  of  these  considerations  ap 
pealed  in  the  least.  His  attitude  of  mind  was  sim 
ply  that  his  will  was  law  by  the  Grace  of  God,  and 
that  it  must  be  enforced  with  all  the  power  that 
Great  Britain  could  bring  to  bear. 

In  their  resistance  to  the  Trade  Laws  the  colonists 
were  still  carrying  on  trade  without  paying  the  duties 
which  the  English  Parliament  had  decreed  that  they 
should  pay.  In  other  words,  Yankee  ships  were 
smuggling  goods  into  the  colonies  as  freely  as  they 
could  under  the  circumstances,  and  with  so  little  of 
disguise  as  not  to  arouse  the  smallest  moral  senti 
ment  against  the  practice.  The  people  held  that 
the  Navigation  and  Trade  Laws  were  unjust  and  that 
they  proceeded  from  an  authority  which  had  no  right 
whatever  to  enact  them.  They  therefore  gave  all 
the  moral  sanction  that  public  opinion  could  give  to 
the  evasion  of  those  laws  by  shipmasters  and  even 
to  their  open  violation  and  defiance. 

On  the  other  hand,  George  III  was  determined  to 
enforce  such  laws  whether  the  people  of  the  colo 
nies  liked  them  or  not.  A  British  warship,  called 
the  Gaspee,  was  sent  out  to  Narragansett  Bay,  which 
at  that  time  was  the  favorite  route  for  the  smuggling 


168  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

vessels.  Her  officers  were  ordered  to  seize  all  such 
vessels,  and  their  cargoes,  and  to  proceed  against 
them  for  purposes  of  condemnation.  For  a  time 
the  Yankee  sailor  boys  were  content  to  outsail  the 
Gaspee,  slip  by  her,  and  land  their  cargoes  unmo 
lested.  This  they  were  generally  able  to  do  by 
reason  of  their  superior  seamanship,  the  superior 
speed  of  their  New  England  built  vessels,  and  their 
superior  knowledge  of  the  bays  and  inlets  that  J  iced 
the  country  around  Narragansett  Bay. 

Nevertheless  the  Gaspee  succeeded  in  making 
some  prizes.  In  every  such  case  public  sentiment 
in  America  felt  that  a  grievous  wrong  had  been  done 
to  an  innocent  shipmaster.  For  by  this  time  every 
patriot  in  America  held  that  the  laws  which  these 
shipmasters  were  evading,  or  violating,  were  no  laws 
at  all,  but  were  enactments  of  a  power  that  had  no 
right  to  enact  them.  They  were  held  to  be  uncon 
stitutional  and  absolutely  void.  Therefore  there 
was  nowhere  among  the  American  patriots  the 
smallest  thought  that  the  smuggling  shipmasters 
were  guilty  of  any  offence  against  a  valid  law,  while 
there  was  everywhere  among  the  Americans  a  feel 
ing  that  the  enforcement  of  that  law  was  an  outrage 
and  a  wrong. 

Finally,  in  1772,  the  British  warship  Gaspee  lost 


ASSERTION  OF  AMERICAN  RIGHTS  169 

her  way  one  day  and  went  aground.  Thereupon  a 
mob  of  reputable  citizens  of  Providence,  led  by  one 
of  the  most  prominent  merchants  of  that  town,  went 
out  to  her,  seized  her,  set  fire  to  her  and  burned 
her  to  the  water's  edge.  When  news  of  this  reached 
England  the  government  sent  out  a  commission  to 
inquire  into  the  matter.  This  commission  had  au 
thority  to  arrest  all  men  accused  of  having  been 
engaged  in  the  affair  and  to  send  them  out  of  the 
colony  for  trial  in  a  court  where  there  was  no  jury. 

Here  was  another  and  a  flagrant  invasion  of  those 
rights  which  the  Americans  claimed  by  virtue  of 
their  English  citizenship.  They  were  entitled  to  a 
trial  by  a  jury  of  their  neighbors. 

Fortunately  the  Chief  Justice,  Stephen  Hopkins, 
although  in  a  sense  he  officially  represented  the 
crown,  took  the  view  of  the  colonists  and  issued  a 
decree  that  none  of  those  men  should  be  taken  out 
of  the  colony  for  trial  or  be  tried  elsewhere  than  in 
a  court  where  their  case  could  be  heard  by  "  a  jury 
of  the  vicinage." 

Thus  one  thing  after  another  drove  the  Ameri 
cans  further  and  further  toward  thoughts  of  resis 
tance  and  toward  that  thought  of  absolute  inde 
pendence  which  had  been  born  in  the  minds  of 
such  men  as  Patrick  Henry,  Samuel  Adams,  James 


170  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

Otis  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  but  which  was  not  yet 
present  in  the  minds  of  the  people  generally.  They 
wanted  to  remain  Englishmen  in  America.  They 
were  still  loyal  to  the  traditions  of  their  race  and  to 
the  mother  country  ;  but  they  simply  would  not 
submit  to  injustice  even  at  the  hands  of  the  mother 
country  that  they  so  loyally  loved. 

Even  to  the  minds  of  some  of  their  great  leaders 
the  thought  of  independence  was  still  exceedingly 
repulsive.  As  late  as  July  23,  1775,  John  Adams, 
writing  to  his  wife,  spoke  apprehensively  of  the 
possibility  that  the  colonies  might  be  "  driven  to 
the  disagreeable  necessity  of  assuming  a  total  in 
dependency/' 

However  "  disagreeable  "  that  necessity  might 
seem  to  conservative  men  like  John  Adams,  every 
event  of  the  time  strongly  tended  to  force  it  upon 
them  and  every  such  event  tended  to  reconcile 
American  thought  to  the  prospect  of  separation 
from  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DRIFTING     TOWARD     REVOLUTION 

AT  this  time,  and  indeed  long  after  the  Revolu 
tion,   Virginia    and    Massachusetts  were  rec 
ognized  throughout  the  country  as  leaders  in 
every    public    movement.      In    March,    1773,    the 
Virginia    House  of  Burgesses,  at   the  instigation  of 
Patrick  Henry,  George  Mason  and  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  took   a  step   of  far-reaching   consequence.      It 
was  indeed  the  first  decisive  step  towards  a  union  of 
the  colonies  for  defence  against  British  aggression. 

The  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses  appointed  what 
was  called  a  "  Committee  of  Correspondence," 
whose  duty  it  should  be  to  maintain  close  and  fre 
quent  communication  with  the  authorities  and  the 
leading  men  in  the  other  colonies  and  thus  to  secure 
concert  of  action  between  them  with  a  view  to 
united  and  determined  resistance. 

Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New 
Hampshire  and  South  Carolina,  accepted  Virgin 
ia's  suggestion  gladly,  and  each  of  those  colonies 

171 


172  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

promptly  appointed  a  committee  of  correspondence, 
thus  organizing  resistance  in  a  way  that  was  cal 
culated  to  make  it  formidable.  The  excitement  of 
the  public  mind  was  by  this  time  so  intense  that  it 


A  spinning  bee. 

only   needed  consultation   and   free  correspondence 
between   the    leaders  in   the    different   provinces   to 
crystallize  it  into  something  resembling  revolution. 
The  Townshend  Acts  had  been  repealed,  indeed, 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION     173 

simply  because  it  became  obvious  to  the  British  au 
thorities' that  they  could  not  be  enforced  against  the 
obstinate  resistance  of  the  Americans.  But,  in 
repealing  them.  Parliament  had  made  the  same 
mistake  that  it  had  made  in  repealing  the  Stamp 
Act.  It  still  insisted  upon  the  right  of  the  British 
Legislature,  in  which  the  Americans  were  not  repre 
sented,  to  tax  the  Americans  at  will.  The  Act 
of  Repeal  abrogated  all  the  customs  duties  imposed 
by  the  Townshend  Acts,  except  that  it  retained  a 
small  duty  on  tea. 

This  duty  was  so  small  indeed  as  to  be  insignif 
icant.  It  promised  no  revenue  of  consequence  to 
the  British  government,  and  it  involved  no  serious 
hardship  to  the  colonists.  That  tax  was  retained 
for  no  other  purpose  than  that  of  asserting  the 
right  of  the  British  Parliament  to  tax  the  Americans. 
It  was  hoped  in  London  that  the  utter  insignificance 
of  the  tax  would  induce  the  Americans  to  submit  to 
it  and  thus  to  surrender  their  contention.  But  the 
Americans  had  by  this  time  planted  themselves 
firmly  upon  a  principle,  a  determination,  a  dogma. 
That  principle,  that  determination,  that  dogma,  was 
that  the  British  Parliament  had  no  right  whatsoever 
to  tax  the  Americans  at  all.  As  one  of  the  great 
Americans  of  that  time  expressed  it  in  an  eloquent 


174  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

speech,   "the    right   to    take    a   penny   implies   the 

right  to  take  a  pound." 

The  Americans  by  this   time  were   in  a   mood  to 

dispute  the  right  to  take   the   penny   as   obstinately 

as  they  might  have 
disputed  the  right 
to  take  the  pound. 
They  made  up  their 
minds  that  they 
would  pay  no  duty 
whatever  upon  tea 
or  anything  else  so 
long  as  that  duty  was 
not  levied  by  acts  of 
their  own  legisla 
tures.  They  were 
ready  to  tax  them 
selves  and  to  pay 
their  taxes  for  any 
public  purpose  and 
to  any  extent  that 

A  colonial  tea-party.  mignt    be    necessary. 

But  they  were  determined  to  establish  and  maintain 
the  principle  that  nobody  else  on  earth  could  tax 
them  or  make  laws  of  any  other  kind  for  their 
governance.  In  other  words,  the  American  people, 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION     175 

almost  without  knowing  it,  had  already  declared 
their  independence  although,  with  the  traditions 
strong  upon  them,  they  still  shrank  from  any  open 
act  of  separation  from  the  mother  country. 

Their  resistance  to  this  petty  tea  tax,  which 
amounted  to  nothing  in  itself,  was  determined  and 
and  even  violent.  It  took  many  forms.  In  every 
patriotic  household  it  was  decided  that  no  more  tea- 
drinking  should  be  done  until  the  drinking  of  tea 
should  no  longer  imply  submission  to  a  tyranny. 
In  many  households  there  were  family  conclaves 
which  solemnly  affixed  seals  to  all  the  tea  caddies, 
with  the  determination  that  those  seals  should  never 
be  broken  until  such  time  as  tea-drinking  should  no 
longer  involve  the  payment  of  any  tax  to  a  foreign 
power. 

Many  of  these  sealed  tea  caddies  were  preserved 
for  a  hundred  years  afterwards  as  precious  me 
mentoes  of  the  patriotism  of  the  men  and  women 
who  had  caused  their  sealing  and  from  whom  the 
owners  of  the  farms  and  plantations  concerned  had 
been  descended. 

But  the  tax  was  resisted  in  more  violent  ways 
than  this.  Every  ship  that  bore  tea  into  the  har 
bors  of  New  York  or  Philadelphia  was  turned  back 
and  denied  permission  to  land  its  cargo.  In  Charles- 


176  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


ton,  South  Carolina,  the  tea  was  allowed  to  be 
unloaded  but  not  to  be  sold  or  otherwise  disposed 
of.  It  was  carefully  placed  in  damp  storehouses 
where  it  remained  untouched  for  several  years,  after 
which,  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  all  of  it  that 
had  not  rotted,  was  seized  and  sold,  and  the 

money  received  for  it 
was  expended  for  ammu 
nition  with  which  to  fight 
the  British. 

In  Boston  an  attempt 
was  made  to  prevent  the 
landing  of  tea  cargoes, 
but  the  royal  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  acting 
for  the  king,  refused  to 
allow  the  tea  ships  to 
quit  the  harbor  and  re 
turn  to  England.  He 
ordered  that  their  car- 

A  hatter's  shop  in  old  times.  go£s     should    be    landed> 

The  men  of  Massachusetts  decreed  otherwise. 
A  company  of  them  was  formed  and  assembled,  in 
the  disguise  of  Indians,  near  the  Old  South  Meet 
ing  House  in  Boston  on  December  16,  1773. 
Suddenly  a  preconcerted  war  whoop  was  raised  and 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION     177 

this  company  of  Bostonians  boarded  the  ships  and 
emptied  ninety  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  tea  into 
the  salt  waters  of  the  bay.  This  event  is  known 
in  history  as  the  "Boston  Tea  Party." 

When  news  of  these  acts  of  resistance  reached 
England  the  government  and  the  majority  party  in 
Parliament  grew  very  angry  and  passed  several  laws 
which  the  Americans  called  the  "Intolerable  Acts." 

One  of  these  was  the  "Boston  Port  Bill."  It 
was  an  act  intended  forever  to  destroy  Boston  as 
a  commercial  city.  It  ordered  that  no  ships  should 
enter  the  harbor  of  Boston  or  sail  from  that  har 
bor.  Here  was  an  act  which  it  was  not  easy  to 
resist,  for  the  reason  that  a  shipmaster  violating 
such  a  law  became,  legally  at  least,  a  pirate,  subject 
to  all  the  pains  and  penalties  of  piracy  in  any  part 
of  the  world  to  which  he  might  sail.  The  act  there 
fore  instantly  destroyed  the  business  of  the  Boston 
merchants,  except  in  so  far  as  they  might  do  busi 
ness  through  Salem,  which  city  offered  them  the  use 
of  its  ports,  docks  and  warehouses. 

Another  of  the  "Intolerable  Acts"  provided  that 
in  certain  cases,  persons  accused  of  murder  by 
reason  of  homicides  committed  in  connection  with 
the  enforcement  of  the  English  laws,  might  be  sent 
for  trial  either  to  England  or  to  "  some  other  of 


178  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

his  Majesty's  colonies."  The  most  careful  of  the 
modern  historical  investigators  agree  that  this  en 
actment  was  designed,  primarily  at  least,  for  the  pro 
tection  of  British  officers  who  might  commit  hom 
icide  in  the  execution  of  their  functions  against  local 
prejudice — that  it  was  in  the  nature  of  a  change  of 
venue.  Even  if  so  interpreted  it  was  held  by  the 
colonists  to  give  a  certain  license  of  murder  to  their 
oppressors  by  excusing  them  from  trial  by  a  jury  of 
the  neighborhood,  and  removing  the  trial  to  so  great 
a  distance  that  the  witnesses  to  the  murder  could 
not  be  heard  upon  the  trial.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  held,  if  the  homicide  had  been  committed  by 
a  colonist  in  resistance  to  the  enforcement  of  the 
law,  this  act  deprived  the  offender  of  his  right  as  an 
Englishman,  to  be  tried  by  a  jury  of  the  vicinage. 

Still  another  of  the  "  Intolerable  Acts  "  was  called 
the  "  Massachusetts  Bill."  That  bill  abrogated  im 
portant  provisions  of  the  charter  of  Massachusetts 
and  in  effect  set  up  a  military  government  in  that 
colony  with  practically  unlimited  authority. 

Under  this  act  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were 
left  with  no  liberties  at  all.  They  were,  so  far  as 
English  law  could  determine,  reduced  to  the  condi 
tion  of  a  people  subject  to  the  will  of  an  arbitrary 
military  governor  who  might  decree  whatsoever  he 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION     179 

pleased  as  regarded  them  and  whose  decrees  could 
be  enforced  by  military  power.  The  men  of  Massa 
chusetts  were  not  disposed  to  submit  to  any  such 
rule  as  this  and  they  never  did  submit  to  it  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  sequel. 

Still  another  of  the  "  Intolerable  Acts  "  was 
called  the  "  Quebec  Act."  The  province  of  Que 
bec,  which  at  that  time  included  practically  all  of 
Canada,  was  governed  by  absolute  autocratic  author 
ity.  The  Quebec  Act  prescribed  that  all  the  terri 
tory  south  of  that  province  from  the  Great  Lakes  to 
the  Ohio  River,  including  the  western  possessions 
of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New  York  and  Vir 
ginia,  should  be  included  in  the  province  of  Que 
bec  and  governed  by  its  arbitrary  rulers.  Massachu 
setts,  New  York  and  Virginia  by  virtue  of  their 
early  grants  claimed  vast  territories  in  the  west 
which  this  act  was  intended  to  take  away  from  them. 
There  were  certain  saving  clauses  in  the  act,  and 
some  historians  in  our  time  hold  that  these  were 
meant  to  protect  the  grants  to  Massachusetts,  Con 
necticut  and  Pennsylvania.  But  the  colonists  do 
not  appear  to  have  understood  the  matter  in  that 
way. 

One  good  thing  that  the  "  Intolerable  Acts  "  did 
was  to  cement  the  union  between  the  several  Ameri- 


180  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

can  colonies  and  intensify  their  opposition  to  British 
tyranny.  When  Boston  was  practically  closed  as  a 
seaport  and  its  merchants  were  ruined,  every  colony 
was  prompt  to  send  help  thither  and,  with  the  help, 
to  send  sympathy  that  meant  far  more  than  the 
material  aid  could  mean.  Even  from  South  Caro 
lina,  half  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  from  Georgia, 
still  farther  distant,  there  came  gifts  of  money  and 
help  from  those  who  did  not  know  and  could  not 
know  how  soon  the  fate  of  Boston  might  fall  upon 
their  own  ports  of  entry. 

These  acts  of  oppression  aroused  the  colonies 
from  the  far  north  to  the  far  south  to  angry  and  in 
dignant  resistance.  They  served  to  unite  the  whole 
American  people — with  the  exception  of  a  small  per 
centage  of  Tories  and  toadies — in  a  spirit  of  deter 
mined  resistance.  Everywhere  the  Americans  were 
aroused  to  fury  and  presently  by  way  of  self-de 
fence,  and  on  motion  of  the  Massachusetts  Legisla 
ture,  they  called  a  Congress  to  meet  in  Philadel 
phia  on  the  5th  of  September,  1774. 

Twelve  of  the  thirteen  colonies  sent  delegates  to 
this  Congress  and  the  I3th,  Georgia,  was  in  full 
sympathy  with  its  purposes. 

This  Congress  adopted  one  extreme  measure  of 
resistance.  That  measure  was  suggested  by  the 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  REVOLUTION     181 

voluntary  agreements  which  had  been  made  by 
Americans  in  different  parts  of  the  country  not  to 
import  any  British  goods  so  long  as  the  British  pre 
tension  of  a  right  to  levy  taxes  upon  imports  should 
be  maintained.  The  Congress  of  1774  enacted  this 
into  general  law.  It  was  forbidden  throughout  the 
English  colonies  in  America  to  import  British  goods 
of  any  kind  until  such  time  as  the  British  govern 
ment  should  recognize  America's  rights. 

This  enactment  struck  at  the  root  of  the  whole 
difficulty.  The  British  government  had  established 
and  maintained  these  colonies  as  a  source  of  revenue 
to  itself  and  to  its  merchants  and  manufacturers. 
When  the  Americans  decided  that  they  would  buy 
no  more  English  goods,  both  the  revenues  of  the 
British  government  and  the  profits  of  the  British 
merchants  and  manufacturers  were  completely  cut 
off. 

The  time  had  now  come  when  the  Americans 
could  adopt  a  policy  of  this  kind  for  the  reason  th'at 
they  had  learned  to  make  for  themselves  every  arti 
cle  that  they  really  needed.  Their  resources  were 
amply  sufficient  for  their  own  support.  They  could 
make  cloths,  which  were  inferior  perhaps  to  those 
made  in  England,  but  which  were  sufficient  unto 
their  needs.  They  were  smelting  iron  and  they 


182  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

knew  how  to  convert  it  into  such  utensils  as  they 
had  need  to  use.  They  were  growing  hemp,  and 
flax,  and  wool,  and  they  knew  how  to  weave  and  to 
spin  them.  They  had  glass  works  of  their  own. 
They  had  tanneries  and  they  knew  how  to  convert 
hides  into  leather,  and  leather  into  shoes  and  har 
ness,  without  any  aid  whatsoever  from  the  outside. 
They  had  ceased  to  drink  tea,  but  they  had  sassafras 
in  abundance  and  they  were  content  with  that.  They 
had  also  in  the  south  the  yaupon  and  other  shrubs 
closely  akin  to  tea.  If  worse  came  to  worst  they 
could  do  without  tea  altogether. 

In  brief,  the  American  people  had  begun  to  real 
ize  that  they  were  in  fact  independent  of  Great 
Britain,  except  hi  political  ways,  and  the  realization 
of  that  truth  very  strongly  tempted  them  to  that 
declaration  of  political  independence  which  was  in 
evitable  and  which  was  presently  to  come. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BEYOND   THE   MOUNTAINS 

WHEN  the  great  French  and  Indian  War 
ended,  in  1763,  in  the  destruction  of  the 
French  power  in  America,  a  new  impetus 
was  given  to  the  migratory  habits  of  the  Americans. 
These  were  men  and  women  whose  fathers  and 
mothers  had  come  out  across  three  thousand  miles 
of  sea  and  braved  the  hardships  of  the  wilderness, 
and  the  terrors  of  Indian  war,  in  order  to  better 
their  condition  and  the  condition  of  their  sons  and 
daughters  after  them.  These  men  and  women  had 
therefore  inherited  the  migratory  habit,  and  they 
were  constantly  upon  the  lookout  for  opportunities 
to  better  themselves  by  changes  of  residence. 

The  destruction  of  the  French  power  had  opened 
to  them  all  that  magnificently  fruitful  region  which 
lay  between  the  Alleghenies  and  the  Mississippi, 
and  they  were  prompt  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity  thus  offered  for  their  betterment.  As 
a  consequence  there  was  a  prompt  secondary  migra- 

183 


184  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

tion  westward  and  southward  between  1760  and  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  This  migration  took 
many  courses  and  resulted  in  much  of  consequence. 
The  Germans  who  had  so  largely  settled  in  Penn 
sylvania,  moved  southward  in  numbers  along  the 
fruitful  valley  that  lies  between  the  Blue  Ridge  and 


A  Conestoga  wagon  in  the  Bull's  Head  Yard,  Philadelphia. 

the  Alleghenies.  They  established  farmsteads, 
opened  fields  and  planted  orchards  throughout  all 
that  rich  region,  the  poorer  among  them  even 
settling  far  up  on  the  mountain  sides  where  land 
was  cheapest.  They  built  there  homes  of  their  own. 
These  people  are  even  now  ignorantly  called 


BEYOND   THE  MOUNTAINS  185 

"Pennsylvania    Dutch."     They  were   in   fact   Ger 
mans,  or  the  children  of  Germans. 

Wherever  they  went  they  built  substantially.  In 
the  main  their  houses  were  of  stone.  They  were 
plain  but  they  were  spacious  and  comfortable.  Even 
their  barns  and  their  corncribs  were  in  many  cases 
built  of  the  stones  that  lay  ready  to  their  hands, 
and  their  prosperity  was 
as  substantial  as  their 
buildings. 

They  lived  much 
within  themselves. 
Each  farmstead  pro 
vided  abundantly  for  all 

A  pack  horse. 

its  own  wants,  and  gave 

little    attention  to  markets  in  which   to   buy  or  to 

sell. 

This  tide  of  migration  poured  on  down  through 
Maryland,  Virginia,  and  on  into  the  Carolinas. 
These  "  Pennsylvania  Dutch  "  were  a  sturdy  race, 
self-reliant,  resolute,  and  thoroughly  capable  of 
making  the  most  of  their  opportunities  and  their 
surroundings.  They  planted  fruits  of  every  kind, 
they  opened  fields  and  they  cultivated  them  faith 
fully.  They  set  up  their  cider  presses.  They  made 
applebutter.  They  grew  great  herds  of  swine  and 


186  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

sheep  and  cattle.  In  short  they  became  a  pecu 
liarly  and  very  comfortably  independent  people,  with 
a  purpose  as  resolute  as  that  of  their  English  fellow- 
colonists  to  insist  upon  being  let  alone. 

The  so-called  "  Scotch-Irish "  also  were  much 
given  to  this  secondary  migration.  They  were  a 
daring  and  courageous  people  who  did  not  flinch 
from  hardship  on  the  one  hand,  or  from  Indian 
war  on  the  other,  and  they  had  a  keen  sense  of  the 
"  main  chance."  They  too  moved  down  the  valley 
of  Virginia  and  established  themselves  there  and  in 
the  mountains  to  the  South,  with  resolute  intent  to 
make  there  their  homes  and  to  defend  them  against 
all  comers.  As  Mrs.  Margaret  J.  Preston  has  said 
in  a  noble  poem,  they  were  men  "  with  blood  in 

their  veins  and  iron 
in  their  blood." 
Their  service  to  the 
American  cause 

A  wooden  tray.  during  the    Revolu- 

tion  was  very  great.  In  the  meanwhile  they  were 
building  up  by  their  industry  a  prosperity  for  them 
selves  the  result  of  which  endures  even  to  our  time. 
It  was  from  sources  such  as  these,  and  others  of 
like  kind,  that  the  regions  west  of  the  mountains 
were  presently  populated.  Now  that  the  great  West 


BEYOND  THE  MOUNTAINS  187 

belonged  to  the  Americans  these  people  and  a  mul 
titude  of  Virginians  and  Carolinians,  pushed  rapidly 
over  the  mountains  and  settled  there  in  order  to 
take  advantage  of  the  fruitful  soil  and  favorable 
climate  for  the  upbuilding  of  prosperity  for  them 
selves  and  their  families. 

They  went  into  the  Ohio  country  under  the  grant 
that  had  been  given  to  the  first 
Ohio  Company.  These  emi 
grants  settled  mainly  along  the 
Ohio  River  and  its  tributaries, 
a  region  fruitful  in  the  extreme, 
where  the  forests  furnished  all 
the  materials  they  needed  for 
building,  and  where  the  fields  Skillets, 

needed  only  to  be  "  tickled  with  a  hoe  that  they 
might  laugh  with  a  harvest." 

The  "people  in  the  Ohio  country  and  to  the  south 
of  it  were  as  yet  without  a  market  for  the  products 
of  their  farms  and  there  was  at  that  time  no  prospect 
of  such  a  market.  But  at  least  they  produced  upon 
their  farms  everything  that  they  needed,  and  they 
could  live,  as  it  were,  within  themselves. 

This  they  did.  They  had  fields  teeming  with 
wheat  and  corn,  other  fields  blue  with  flax  and  still 
others  white  with  cotton.  They  had  flocks  and 


188  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

herds  in  abundance,  that  fed  fat  upon  the  sponta 
neous  growth  of  grasses  in  that  country.  If  they 
wished  to  build,  there  were  stones  and  timber  im 
mediately  at  hand.  The  springs  and  wells  of  that 
region  furnished  them  all  that  they  wanted  of  water. 
The  waterfalls  turned  the  wheels  of  the  mills  they 
needed  for  the  grinding  of  their  grains.  Their  sheep 
wandered  upon  the  hillsides,  closely  cropped  the 
grass,  and  grew  fat  upon  it.  Their  cattle  waded 
knee  deep  in  the  green  lusciousness  of  the  lowlands. 
Their  flocks  of  geese  furnished  them  with  all  the 
material  they  needed  for  comfortable  beds.  Their 
turkeys  and  chickens  fed  fat  upon  the  waste  of  their 
granaries.  Their  rivers  and  creeks  yielded  them 
fish  in  abundance  and  wild  fowl  at  certain  seasons. 
They  were  a  happy  people,  absolutely  independent 
of  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  so  far  as  the  supplying 
of  their  wants  was  concerned,  and  they  knew  no 
other  needs. 

But  the  Ohio  country  was  not  the  only  one  occu 
pied  at  that  time  by  enterprising  emigrants  from 
the  colonies  further  east.  About  1769  a  considerable 
migration  set  in  toward  the  peculiarly  fertile  and 
fascinating  region  which  now  constitutes  the  states 
of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  These  men  were 
mainly  hunters,  adventurers  and  explorers  who  went 


BEYOND  THE  MOUNTAINS 


189 


in  advance  of  civilization  to  "  spy  out  the  land." 
The  Indians  called  them  the  "  Long  Knives." 
They  went  usually  each  man  by  himself,  each  tak 
ing  his  life  in  his  hand,  risking  Indian  massacre, 
and  without  comrades  to  depend  upon,  plunged 
into  the  wilderness,  there  to  maintain  himself  by  his 
own  exertions  and  his  own  sagacity. 

There  were  some 
great  •  men  among 
these.  Famous 
among  them  were 
James  Robertson, 
John  Sevier,  Daniel 
Boone,  Isaac  Shelby 
and  Simon  Kenton. 

Some  of  them  went 
out  merely  as  hunt 
ers  in  search  of  game. 
Some  of  them  were 
surveyors.  Some  of  them,  like  Daniel  Boone,  were 
restless  pioneers,  hunting  for  a  home  so  remote  from 
all  other  men's  habitations  that  no  sound  of  other 
men's  activities  might  reach  them.  It  is  related  of 
Daniel  Boone,  for  instance,  that  on  one  occasion  he 
abandoned  the  home  he  had  made  for  himself  and 
moved  farther  west  because  a  neighbor  had  settled 


Daniel  Boone. 


190  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 


within  a   dozen   miles    of  him    and   he  thought   the 

o 

country  was  becoming  too  crowded  to  hold  him 
comfortably. 

Some  of  these  men,  however,  were  settlers,  bent 
upon  building  up  little  colonies  west  of  the  moun 
tains.  Among  these  were  James  Robertson  and 
John  Sevier  who,  about  1772,  with  a  company  of 

their  friends  settled 
on  the  creek  or  little 
river  known  as  the 
Watauga  in  what  is 
now  the  State  of 
Tennessee. 

All  that  region 
belonged  at  that 
time  to  North  Caro 
lina,  but  Sevier  and 
Robertson  and  their 
Old  windmill.  comrades  did  not 

like  the  arbitrary  rule  of  the  royal  governor  of  North 
Carolina  and  so,  after  the  manner  of  men  in  the  wil 
derness,  they  set  up  a  government  for  themselves. 
During  the  next  six  years  Watauga  governed  itself 
as  an  independent  state.  In  fact  this  might  be  called 
the  first  absolutely  sovereign  and  independent  State 
ever  established  in  America.  It  was  located  in  the 


BEYOND  THE  MOUNTAINS 


191 


wilderness,  but  its  people  knew  how  to  take  care  of 
themselves. 

After  a  while  the  settlers  established  in  Ken 
tucky — which  was  then  a  part  of  Virginia — became 
so  numerous  that  the  Indians  made  war  upon  them 


A  needle  work  sampler. 

and  undertook  to  drive  them  back  over  the  moun 
tains.  But  Virginia  was  a  province  strongly  dis 
posed  to  take  care  of  its  people  wherever  they  might 
go  and  still  more  strongly  disposed  to  assert  its 
authority  over  all  regions  that  belonged  to  it.  So 
when  the  savages  went  to  war,  Virginia  organized  a 


192  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

little  army  and  sent  it  out  to  overcome  them.  In 
1774  this  Virginia  army  encountered  the  Indians 
at  Point  Pleasant  and  so  completely  defeated  them 
that  a  permanent  peace  was  made.  After  that 
Virginians  and  Carolinians  in  increasing  numbers 
removed  to  the  western  wilderness. 

The  favorite  region  of  settlement  at  that  time  was 
that  which  lay  between  the  Kentucky 
River,  which  enters  the  Ohio  be 
tween  Cincinnati  and  Louisville,  and 
the  Cumberland  River,  which  de 
bouches  into  the  Ohio  hundreds  of 
miles  further  west — the  region  since 

From  portrait  of    .  ,    ,         ,  ,  ,, 

Mrs.  Mary  Sinibert    kn°Wn  aS       the    blue  graSS   Country. 

(about  1735).  This  region  was  at  that  time  called 

Transylvania.  Settlers  slowly  went  into  that  domain 
and  in  the  absence  of  government  of  any  kind  from 
the  outside  they  presently  set  up  a  little  state  of  their 
own.  They  were  beset  by  Indian  enemies,  but  they 
knew  how  to  deal  with  their  foes.  They  organized 
a  little  army  of  their  own,  under  the  leadership  of  a 
young  Virginian  named  George  Rogers  Clark,  who 
was  destined  a  little  later  to  accomplish  one  of  the 
great  campaigns  of  the  Revolution.  In  the  mean 
while  he  successfully  defended  the  little  Transylvania 
region  against  its  Indian  enemies  and  built  up  there 


BEYOND  THE  MOUNTAINS  193 

a  state  of  no  mean  consequence.  In  1776  he  went 
back  to  Virginia  and  induced  the  legislature  of  that 
state  to  organize  the  Transylvania  country  into  a 
Virginia  county  to  be  called  the  County  of  Ken 
tucky. 

Thus  the  region  west  of  the  mountains  was 
settled,  before  the  Revolution  began,  by  a  sturdy, 
hard-fisted,  straight-shooting  and  daring  race  of 
men  who  were  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in 
the  struggle  of  the  American  colonies  for  inde 
pendence. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  all  these  men, 
whether  in  the  colonies  of  the  east  or  in  the  settle 
ments  of  the  west,  had  ceased  to  be  mere  colonists 
and  had  become  Americans  with  an  American  im 
pulse  and  inspiration.  They  were  the  men  who 
were  destined  presently  to  combat  English  preten 
sion  with  arms,  and  to  assert  once  for  all  the  ab 
solute  and  unconditioned  right  of  the  American 
people  to  govern  themselves. 

Thus  was  preparation  made,  by  circumstances 
and  by  the  character  of  the  people  concerned,  for 
that  vital  struggle  which  is  known  in  history  as  the 
American  Revolution. 


M 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

IN  this  volume,  and  the  one  preceding  it,  we  have 
sketched  the  history  of  the  colonies   from    the 
foundation  of  the  first  permanent  settlement  at 
Jamestown  in  Virginia  (1607),  to   the  time   (1775) 
when  the  stupidity  and  injustice  of  English  dealings 
with  the  colonies  forced  upon  the  Americans  a  war 
for  independence.      It  is  a  curious  fact  that  that  war 
for  independence  was   never   formally  declared  and 
was  never  recognized  by  the  British  government  as 
existing,  until  its  end  came  in  British  defeat. 

The  Treaty  of  Peace  which  closed  it  with  a  recog 
nition  of  American  independence  was  absolutely  the 
first  formal  act  of  the  British  government  that  recog 
nized  the  legitimate  existence  of  such  a  war.  The 
colonies  had  been  declared  to  be  "  in  rebellion,"  and 
in  1775  Parliament  passed  an  act  forbidding  "trade 
and  intercourse "  with  them  on  the  ground  that 
"  they  have  set  themselves  in  open  rebellion  and 
defiance  to  the  just  and  legal  authority  of  King  and 
194 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     195 

Parliament."  But  until  the  very  end  of  the  war  its 
status  as  war  was  in  nowise  recognized  by  British 
authority.  And  even  after  that  treaty  of  peace  was 
signed,  and  diplomatic  relations  were  opened  be 
tween  Great  Britain  and  the  new  republic  in  Amer 
ica,  English  statesmanship  continued  to  regard  both 
the  war  and  its  consequences  as  temporary  incidents 


Philipse  Manor,  Yonkers,  N.  Y.,  as  it  formerly  appeared. 

in  colonial  government  and  not  at  all  the  revolution 
that  they  were. 

The  war  of  1812-1815,  has  been  sometimes 
called  the  second  war  for  independence.  This  is  in 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  until  that  second  war  was 
fought  out,  English  statesmanship  did  not  regard 


196  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  independence  of  the  United  States  as  a  perma 
nent  fact,  or  as  anything  more  than  a  temporary  and 
passing  circumstance. 

Having  thus  traced  the  history  of  life  in  the 
colonies  from  their  beginning  until  that  point  at 
which  they  asserted  and  prepared  themselves  to 
make  good  their  independence  of  the  mother  coun 
try,  it  seems  desirable  to  summarize  the  conditions 
that  had  marked  their  progress  and  that  ultimately 
led  them  into  revolt  and  revolution. 

The  first  colony  at  Jamestown,  as  we  know,  was 
founded  with  little  discretion.  The  first  colonists 
were  a  peculiarly  unfit  company  to  undertake  such 
work  as  they  were  commissioned  to  do.  Their  sur 
roundings  and  conditions  still  further  rendered  their 
problem  difficult.  Without  women  or  children 
among  them,  without  families,  without  any  private 
ownership  of  land,  and  without  the  smallest  capacity 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  resources  that  the  country 
in  which  they  had  settled  offered  in  great  abundance, 
their  success  in  establishing  a  permanent  colony  at 
that  time  is  an  event  that  must  always  be  regarded 
as  almost  miraculous. 

A  little  later  better  men  came  to  them  together 
with  some  worse  ones  ;  but  little  by  little  the  colony 
learned  how  to  live  in  America  and  how  to  prosper 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     197 


198  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

here.  Then  came  a  still  better  immigration  and  with 
it  a  still  greater  prosperity. 

The  men  and  women  who  landed  at  Plymouth 
were  a  good  deal  better  qualified  than  the  earlier 
Virginians  had  been  for  the  work  they  had  to  do, 
and  the  men  and  women  who  later  founded  Massa 
chusetts  Bay  colony  were  still 
better  equipped  with  ability  and 
character.  After  these  three 
colonies  were  permanently  es 
tablished  it  was  inevitable  that 
men  of  capacity  of  every  kind, 

From   portrait   of  Mrs.  r  j 

_,  men    or    enterprise,    determma- 

Thomas  Boylston  (about 

1765).  tion,  helpfulness  and  courage, 

should  continually  come  out  to  join  them  and  help 
them  accomplish  the  great  things  that  had  been 
marked  out  for  them  to  do. 

The  other  colonies  followed  naturally  upon  the 
success  of  these,  and  quite  inevitably. 

Three  kinds  of  government  prevailed  in  the  colo 
nies  :  The  first  was  the  proprietary  government  in 
which  an  Englishman,  or  an  English  company,  owned 
the  whole  enterprise  and  directed  it  at  pleasure. 
The  second  was  the  royal  government  under  which 
the  king  of  England  appointed  a  royal  governor  for 
the  colony  at  his  own  good  pleasure.  In  the  royal 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     199 

governor  was  vested  the  right  to  veto  the  laws  made 
by  the  colonial  legislature  and  in  other  ways  to  in 
terfere  with  popular  self-government.  Finally,  there 
were  charter  governments,  under  which  the  people 
of  each  colony  were  granted  certain  rights  of  self- 
government  by  free  grace  of  the  king.  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  classify  colonial 
governments  more  scientifically  than 
this,  but  without  such  refinements,  the 
old  classification  here  adopted  answers 
all  purposes  of  a  brief  history  like  this, 
and  it  was  the  one  accepted  by  the 

Colonists  themselves.  Black  silk  bonnet. 

Most,  though  not  all  of  the  colonies  passed 
through  two  or  all  three  of  these  stages. 

Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  were  originally  owned 
by  corporate  proprietors  in  England,  but  they  early 
threw  off  the  intolerable  burden  of  government  by 
Lords  Proprietors  or  by  English  corporations,  and 
accepted  in  its  stead  the  scarcely  less  oppressive 
system  of  government  known  as  royal.  They  were 
constantly  more  or  less  in  revolt  against  that  govern 
ment  after  it  had  been  established,  but  at  least  they 
found  it  better  than  the  proprietary  system  which 
had  preceded  it.  Much  the  same  history  had  been 
that  of  the  other  colonies,  and  when  the  resistance 


200  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

of  the  Americans  to  English  oppression  crystallized 
itself  into  war  in  1 775,  Virginia,  New  Jersey,  Georgia, 
the  two  Carolinas  and  New  Hampshire  were  all 
under  royal  governments.  Pennsylvania,  Delaware 
and  Maryland  alone  remained  proprietary  colonies. 
The  rule  of  the  proprietors  in  those  three  colonies 
had  been  so  mild  and  so  reasonable  that  their  people 
had  never  been  driven  to  ask  for  royal  authority  in 
its  stead,  though  in  Pennsylvania  a  party,  of  whom 
Franklin  was  one,  earnestly  sought  the  substitution 
of  royal  for  proprietary  rule.  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island  were  charter  colonies  to  the  end  of 
that  period  and  even  after  the  end.  They  had  had 
the  good  fortune  to  receive  charters 
at  an  early  time  which  guaranteed  to 
their  people  so  much  of  liberty  and 
self-government  that  those  two  colo 
nies  were  in  fact  almost  independent 
republics  on  a  small  scale.  They 
Musk-melon  governed  themselves  as  they  pleased 
bonnet.  anc[  were  successful,  as  we  have  before 

seen,  in  resisting  the  attempts  made  by  royal  author 
ity  to  take  their  charters  away  from  them,  and  bring 
them  under  the  rule  of  a  foreign  power. 

Massachusetts  also  was  possessed  of  a  charter,  but 
its    governor   was   a   man    appointed    by    the    king 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     201 

and  was  usually  in  antagonism  to  the  will  of  the 
people.  Indeed,  toward  the  end  of  the  period  of 
which  we  are  now  treating,  Massachusetts  had  in  fact 
two  governments,  independent  of  each  other,  and 
distinctly  antagonistic.  The  royal  authority  was 
dominant  in  Boston,  but  outside  of  that  city  the 
people  of  the  colony  had  set  up  for  themselves  a 
government  of  their  own  and  to  it  alone  they  yielded 
allegiance. 

It  was  out  of  this  situation  indeed  that  the  first 
armed  conflict  of  the  Revolution  arose. 

Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  were  intensely 
democratic,  and  so  were  New  Jersey  and  Pennsyl 
vania.  In  the  social  and  political  life  of  those  colo 
nies  there  was  only  here  and  there  a  trace  of  anything 
resembling  aristocracy. 

In  Massachusetts  the  spirit  of  democracy  was  dom 
inant,  but  there  were  great  men  and  great  families 
there,  whose  influence,  politically  and  socially,  was  es 
sentially  aristocratic.  In  New  York  the  old  patroon 
system  of  the  Dutch,  with  the  large  landholdings  that 
it  had  involved,  had  created  a  race  of  patricians  whose 
claim  to  aristocracy  of  birth  and  wealth  has  not 
ceased  even  unto  this  day,  though  the  wealth  has  in 
many  cases  passed  away. 

In  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  both  government 


202  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  society  were  aristocratic  almost  from  the  begin 
ning.  The  influx  of  expatriated  cavaliers  into  Vir 
ginia,  and  their  success  in  establishing  themselves  as 
great  plantation  owners,  had  tended  to  give  to  them 
an  influence  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  their 
numbers. 

In  the  Carolinas  the  original  constitution  of  the 
colony  had  attempted  to  create  an  aristocracy,  and 
later  circumstances  had  in  fact  set  up  an  aristocracy 

of  land  ownership,  the  force 
of  which  has  not  even  yet 
expended  itself. 

Yet  in  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas  the  spirit  of  de 
mocracy  was  felt  at  every 
point.  Patrick  Henry,  "the 
Voice  of  the  Revolution," 
was  of  plebeian  origin  and 
plebeian  associations.  Yet 
it  was  he  who  stirred  the  aristocratic  Virginians  to 
revolt,  and  the  influence  of  that  relentless  lover  of 
liberty  was  mighty  in  its  pleadings  for  the  poor,  the 
commonplace,  the  common. 

In  South  Carolina  it  was  the  aristocrats  themselves 
who  selected  John  Rutledge  to  be  first,  the  president 
of  their  colony,  and  afterwards  their  wonderfully 


Pewter  chafing  dish. 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     203 

successful  war  governor,  during  the  "  storm  and 
stress  "  period  of  the  Revolution.  John  Rutledge 
did  not  belong  by  right  of  birth  to  any  of  the  pa 
trician  families  of  the  Carolinas,  but  by  virtue  of  his 
activity  and  success,  his  character,  his  genius,  and  his 
self-sacrificing  patriotism,  he  made  a  patrician  of  him 
self  and  founded  a  family  that  is  to  this  day  one  of 
the  foremost  in  that  part  of  the  country  so  far  as 
popular  recognition  of  its  right  to  pride  in  its  past 
is  concerned. 

Georgia  was  thoroughly  democratic  from  begin 
ning  to  end  by  reason  of  the  circumstances  of  its 
founding,  and  the  character  of  the  people  whom 
Oglethorpe  had  settled  there.  Another  thing  that 
aided  in  making  that  colony  democratic  was  the  fact 
that  for  many  years  after  its  establishment  slavery 
was  not  permitted  there  and  neither  was  large  land- 
holding.  It  was  chiefly  upon  the  possession  of 
broad  acres  and  the  ownership  of  many  slaves  that 
the  aristocracy  of  the  south  was  built.  These  two 
conditions  being  absent  from  the  Georgia  system 
during  the  formative  period  of  that  colony,  it  was 
natural  that  no  aristocratic  class  should  grow  up  there. 

We  have  already  seen  how  diverse  conditions  ex 
isting  in  the  several  colonies,  while  they  remained 
remote  from  each  other,  led  to  differences  of  a  radi- 


204   LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

cal  kind  in  their  systems  of  local  self-government.. 
But  these  were  the  natural  outgrowths  of  circum 
stances.  They  were  political  garments  fitted  exactly 
to  the  communities  that  must  wear  them.  They 
involved  nothing  of  difference  in  fundamental  prin- 


^H    !g^^g=T  •"*=••-  -  -.-^    •      —  A.SOB3ETT  .56 

The  Royal   Exchange  for  merchants.     Built  in   1752  on  Broad   Street, 
N.  Y.,  nearly  on  the  line  of  Water  Street. 

ciple,  though  much  of  difference  in  the  application  of 
principle  to  practice.  The  dominating  principle  in 
all  the  colonies  was  that  the  people  had  a  right  to 
rule  themselves  in  their  own  fashion,  and  to  regulate 
their  own  affairs  as  they  pleased.  The  differences 
related  only  to  the  methods  by  which  this  self- 
government  should  be  carried  on.  The  democratic 


APPROACH   OF  THE    REVOLUTION     205 

town  meeting  ruled  in  New  England,  the  aristocratic 
county  court,  in  Virginia.  But  the  one  and  the  other 
ruled  by  virtue  of  the  people's  will  that  it  should  do 
so.  The  difference  was  solely  one  of  method,  not 
at  all  one  of  principle.  In  both  cases  the  people 
were  ruled  by  agencies  of  their  own  choosing  and 
their  own  creation.  The  larger  colonial  govern 
ments  were  from  beginning  to  end  much  alike. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  while  the  colonies 
were  at  first  as  remote  from  each  other,  so  far  as  inter 
communication  was  concerned,  as  if  they  had  been 
planted  upon  different  continents,  their  growth  in 
population,  wealth,  commerce  and  independence,  and 
still  more  the  growth  of  a  common  cause  among  them 
had  tended  steadily  to  bring  them  more  and  more  into 
communication  with  each  other.  Little  by  little  they 
interchanged  ideas  with  each  other  and  little  by  lit 
tle  they  had  come  to  be  more  and  more  alike,  both  in 
their  political  institutions  and  in  their  social  life.  By 
the  time  that  the  Revolution  approached  they  were 
practically  one  people  with  a  common  thought,  a 
common  purpose,  a  similar  system  of  government 
and  common  ideals  of  human  rights. 

This  last  idea  indeed  was  a  great  bond  of  union 
among  the  colonists.  From  Massachusetts  to 
Georgia  it  was  everywhere  held  by  the  Americans 


206  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

that  they,  as  Englishmen  in  America,  had  a  right— 
unalienable  and  absolute — to  govern  themselves 
without  interference  from  the  outside.  It  was  in 
assertion  of  that  right  that  they  had  resisted  one 
after  another  of  the  British  encroachments  upon 
their  liberties.  It  was  in  assertion  of  that  right 
that  they  were  now  prepared  to  make 
revolution  and  war.  It  was  in  assertion 
of  that  right  that  the  Pinckneys  and 
Rutledges  of  Carolina,  the  Henrys  and 
Jeffersons  and  Washingtons  of  Virginia, 
the  Carrolls  of  Maryland,  the  Adamses 
Costume  from  anj  Qtises  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 

an  old  portrait.  . 

leading  men  in  all  other  colonies,  round 
themselves  banded  together  with  a  common  purpose 
and  for  the  achievement  of  a  common  end. 

There  were  wide  differences  of  view  among  them 
of  course.  Wealth,  which  is  always  and  everywhere 
conservative,  clung  to  the  colonial  relation  as  some 
thing  the  disturbance  of  which  might  produce  chaos 
and  invoke  black  night.  Thus  not  only  as  the 
Revolution  approached,  but  throughout  its  progress 
there  were  in  all  the  colonies,  a  number  of  people  of 
estimable  character  among  those  who  were  called 
the  "  King's  friends."  These  people  were  what  the 
patriots  of  that  time  called  tories.  Not  all  of  them 


APPROACH  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     207 

were  disloyal  to  the  American  cause  during  the 
Revolution.  Many  of  them  were  men  who  simply 
held  out  as  long  as  they  could,  in  the  hope  that  some 
basis  of  compromise,  concession,  and  conciliation 
might  be  found  by  which  the  colonies  in  America 
should  continue  to  be  English  possessions  and  the 
colonists  should  remain  English  subjects.  When 
the  issue  of  war  finally  came  the  greater  number  of 
these  accepted  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
"went  into  the  war  with  a  determination  to  win  it  in 
behalf  of  American  liberty. 

As  an  illustration  of  what  is  here  meant  it  is  an 
interesting  fact  that  even  Benjamin  Franklin — in 
grained  democrat  that  he  was,  and  fierce  patriot 
that  he  proved  himself  to  be,  from  beginning  to  end 
of  the  controversy — was  so  far  imbued  with  the  idea 
of  conservatism  that  even  after  the  "  Boston  Tea 
Party "  had  so  emphatically  expressed  American 
ideas  by  its  act,  he  urged  compromise,  and  deliber 
ately  advised  that  the  colony  of  Massachusetts 
should  pay  for  the  ninety  thousand  dollars  worth  of 
tea  destroyed  by  the  Bostonians,  as  perhaps  it  ought 
to  have  done. 

Some  of  the  tories  upon  principle  and  conviction 
continued  to  be  such  after  the  war  of  the  Revolution 
was  on.  They  were  conscientious  men  who  sin- 


208  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

cerely  believed  the  colonists  to  be  wrong  in  their 
contentions  and  who  regarded  revolution  as  wrong, 
unnecessary  and  impolitic.  But  when  war  was  on 
there  developed  also  another  kind  of  tory — a  tory 
who  sided  with  the  British  for  the  sake  of  personal 
advantage,  or  because  of  cowardice,  or  for  some 
other  unworthy  motive — a  butcherer  of  his  neigh 
bors,  a  conspirator  against  his  fellow-men,  a  self- 
seeker  of  the  basest  kind,  who  hesitated  at  no  act 
of  vandalism  in  pursuit  of  his  purposes. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

HEALTH    CONDITIONS    AND    PECULIARITIES    OF    LIFE 
IN    THE    COLONIES 

IT  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  Americans  of 
that  time  were  living  in  anything  like  the  con 
ditions  in  which  Americans  live  to-day.  Even 
in  the  largest  cities  there  was  nowhere  any  such 
thing  as  a  paved  street  except  a  little  space  in  Phil 
adelphia,  which  Franklin  had  induced  the  city  to 
cover  with  cobblestones.  The  streetways  were 
mere  dirt  roads.  There  was  no  arrangement  in 
most  of  the  towns  for  the  removal  of  dust,  ashes, 
garbage  or  litter  of  any  kind.  These  things  were 
dumped  into  alleys,  or  into  vacant  lots,  or  some 
times  into  the  streets,  to  fester  there  and  breed  dis 
ease.  Nothing  was  known  in  that  age  of  what  we 
now  regard  as  hygienic  commonplaces.  Only  the 
Dutch  in  New  York  attended  somewhat  to  street 
cleaning,  chiefly  as  a  matter  of  neatness. 

It   was   understood   indeed    that    decaying   meat, 
vegetables  and  the  like,  trampled  into  the  mud  of 
N  209 


210  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  streets,  might  be  a  menace  to  health,  and  so  in 
many  of  the  cities  and  towns,  the  authorities  per 
mitted  herds  of  hogs  to  be  turned  loose  in  the 
streets  to  serve  as  scavengers.  This  practice  con 
tinued  in  some  of  the  cities  till  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  the  more  southern  cities, 
and  particularly  in  Charleston,  S.  C.,  great  flocks 
of  carrion  crows  were  depended  upon  to  do  the 
work  of  scavengers.  The  streets,  especially  about 
the  market  places,  were  thronged  with  these  repulsive 
birds,  and  their  protection  by  law  from  interference, 
'bred  an  insolent  tameness  and  self-assertive  disposi 
tion  on  their  part  which  was  picturesque  even  in  its 
offensiveness. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  colonial  times 
no  city  in  all  the  land  had  any  proper  water  supply. 
The  people  got  their  water  from  wells  dug  within 
the  city  itself.  These  wells  were  necessarily  con 
taminated  by  drainage  from  the  reeking  streets  and 
from  other  and  still  fouler  sources,  for  there  were 
no  sewers  to  carry  off  drainage,  no  plumbing  in 
houses,  nothing  indeed  in  the  way  of  municipal  sani 
tation,  except  the  maintenance  of  the  corporation 
hogs  to  eat  what  they  might  of  the  filth  of  the 
streets  and  still  further  to  foul  them.  It  is  no  won 
der  that  the  death  rate  in  American  cities  in  the 


HEALTH   CONDITIONS  211 

colonial  period  appears  to  have  been  appalling,  com 
pensated  for  only  by  the  tendency  to  large  families. 
Unfortunately  we  have  no  precise  statistics  concern 
ing  the  death  rate,  but  enough  is  shown  by  the 
records  to  justify  us  in  regarding  it  as  enormous. 

Smallpox  was  always  prevalent,  so  much  so  that 
a  person  whose  face  showed  no  pittings  was  deemed 
almost  a  curiosity.  Vaccination  was  not  discovered 
by  Jenner  in  England  until  near  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  during  the  colonial  period 
it  was  the  general  practice  to  inoculate  persons  with 
smallpox  itself,  after  careful  preparation,  in  order 
that  they  might  have  the  disease  under  favorable 
circumstances,  and  thus  escape  the  risk  of  having  it 
later  in  unfavorable  conditions.  It  was  the  custom 
for  a  number  of  friends  to  organize  themselves  into 
a  smallpox  party,  take  quarters  together  in  the 
house  of  an  inoculator,  and  there  go  through  the 
experience  in  each  other's  company. 

It  appears  to  have  been  thought  that  the  pittings 
of  the  smallpox  were  rather  ornamental  than  disfig 
uring,  when  few  in  number  and  properly  located 
upon  the  face.  There  remains  to  us  the  advertise 
ment  of  one  quack,  who,  professing  a  special  skill 
acquired  in  the  Orient,  boasted  his% ability  to  minis 
ter  to  feminine  beauty  by  limiting  the  number  of 


212  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

pits  as  desired  and  locating  them  wherever  on  the 
face  the  patient  might  think  most  becoming. 

So  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the  records  that 
survive  to  us  from  that  time,  smallpox  was  far  more 
prevalent  in  the  northern  than  in  the  southern  colo 
nies.  For  this,  two  reasons  at  once  suggest  them 
selves.  In  the  first  place  this  malady  is  a  winter 
disease,  prevailing  chiefly  in  cold  climates,  and  sec 
ondly,  like  all  other  communicable  diseases,  it  pre 
vails  in  cities  and  towns  far  more  generally  than  in 
the  open  country.  As  life  at  the  North  was  largely 
in  cities  and  towns,  while  at  the  South  the  people 
lived  for  the  most  part  on  plantations,  remote  from 
each  other,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  such  a  malady 
would  find  its  most  favorable  field  of  malignant  ac 
tivity  at  the  North. 

Apart  from  the  general  municipal  neglect  of  san 
itation,  there  were  other  unhygienic  conditions  prev 
alent  in  the  daily  life  of  the  people. 

The  ventilation  of  sleeping  rooms  by  night  was  re 
garded  as  dangerous.  Windows  were  tightly  closed, 
beds  were  closely  curtained,  and  there  was  everywhere 
a  terrible  fear  of  breathing  what  was  then  called  "  the 
damp  night  air."  Benjamin  Franklin  on  one  oc 
casion  made  a  journey  across  country  in  company 
with  John  Adams.  Stopping  overnight  at  a  rural 


HEALTH  CONDITIONS  213 

inn  the  two  were  put  to  sleep  in  a  single  bed,  after  the 
tavern  custom  of  that  time.  Franklin  desired  to 
open  a  window,  but  John  Adams  objected  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  dangerous  to  breath  the  "  damp 
night  air."  Franklin  as  a  scientist  knew  better,  and 
assured  his  companion  that  the  night  air  was  in  fact 
no  damper  than  the  air  of  the  daytime,  but  Adams 
could  not  reconcile  himself  to  the  belief  that  it  was 
safe  to  sleep  in  a  room  with  an  open  window.  So 
Franklin  humored  him  until  he  went  to  sleep. 
Then  the  great  practical  philosopher  slipped  out  of 
bed,  and  without  making  any  noise  opened  the  win 
dow  to  its  full  extent.  The  next  morning  Adams 
declared  that  he  had  rarely  slept  so  well  or  so  com 
fortably,  whereupon  Franklin  called  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  he  had  slept  in  the  midst  of  fresh  air 
which  had  come  through  the  surreptitiously  opened 
window.  Adams  regarded  the  discovery  as  so  im 
portant  that  he  wrote  a  letter  about  it. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  while  the 
people  of  that  time  did  not  open  their  windows  at 
night  for  the  sake  of  air,  they  always,  in  cold  weather, 
had  a  fire  burning  in  an  open  chimney  with  a  vast 
throat,  and  that  the  burning  of  the  fire  caused  a  con 
siderable  ventilation. 

The  air-tight  box   stove,  which  is  at  present  used 


214  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

almost  universally  in  New  England,  New  York  and 
other  northern  farmhouses  for  the  sake  of  the  heat 
that  it  yields,  had  not  then  been  invented.  There 
was  nowhere  a  stove  of  any  kind  existing  in  all  the 


A  colonial  kitchen. 


colonies.  The  first  apparatus  of  that  kind  that  was 
introduced  was  Franklin's  stove,  which  he  offered  to 
the  community  "  for  the  better  heating  of  rooms." 
This  was  simply  an  open  fireplace  made  of  iron  and 


PECULIARITIES  OF  LIFE 


215 


set  in  the  middle  of  the  room  instead  of  being  in 
cased  in  a  chimney.  It  very  greatly  economized 
heat  and  without  doubt  added  considerably  to  the 
comfort  of  the  people  of  that  time.  But  it  bore  no 
relation  to  the  box  stove  which  later  came  into  ex 
istence.  It  served  the  same  purpose  that  the  open 
fireplace  did  in  compelling  the  ventilation  of  rooms. 

Franklin  might  have  made  a 
fortune  out  of  this  invention  if 
he  had  taken  out  a  patent 
upon  it  but  he  refused  to  do 
so.  His  explanation  of  his 
refusal  was  that  as  we  profit  by 
the  thoughts  of  other  people 
we  should  let  other  people 
profit  by  our  thoughts. 

In  the  South,  of  course, 
there  was  no  need  for  stoves 
of  any  kind.  The  climate  there  was  mild  and  when 
it  was  cold  enough  to  require  a  fire  the  open  wood 
fireplace,  abundantly  supplied  with  hickory  or  fat 
pine  logs,  answered  all  the  purposes  of  the  people. 

Many  other  things  which  we  nowadays  regard 
as  essential  to  comfort  in  living  were  utterly  lacking 
in  colonial  times,  but  they  were  not  seriously  missed 
by  people  who  had  never  been  accustomed  to  them. 


216  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

In  all  the  land,  at  the  time  when  the  Revolution 
was  approaching,  there  was  probably  not  a  single 
bathroom  in  any  house.  No  city  had  a  water  supply 
running  through  pipes  into  people's  houses.  Gas 
had  not  yet  been  introduced.  The  electric  light 
was  not  to  be  thought  of  until  about  a  century  later. 
Even  coal  oil  was  utterly  unknown.  People  lighted 
their  houses  with  candles  and  torches  whenever  they 
felt  the  need  of  any  greater  light  than  that  which  a 
fire  of  blazing  logs  supplied.  These  candles  were 
all  made  at  home,  each  family  having  candle  molds 
and  manufacturing  its  supplies  from  tallow  rendered 
out  of  the  fats  of  such  beeves  as  they  had  occasion 
to  kill.  As  these  beeves  were  killed  at  long  and  ir 
regular  intervals,  candle  light  was  an  expensive 
luxury  and  no  candles  were  burned  in  most  of  the 
houses  except  under  pressure  of  necessity.  In  the 
houses  of  the  very  well-to-do,  there  were  lamps 
burning  sperm  oil  and  lard  oil.  But  these  lamps 
were  lighted  only  upon  special  occasions  because  of 
the  cost  of  the  oil. 

An  insistent  Sabbatarianism  existed  in  all  the 
colonies,  but  particularly  in  New  England.  This 
strictness  of  Sunday  observance  manifested  itself  in 
many  interesting  ways.  Nearly  a  hundred  years 
later  it  was  still  a  matter  of  serious  controversy 


PECULIARITIES  OF  LIFE  217 

whether  or  not  it  was  permissible  for  one  to  write 
letters  to  his  friends  on  Sunday.  In  many  houses 
almost  a  hundred  years  later  all  Sunday  meals  con 
sisted  of  cold  victuals,  cooked  on  the  day  before, 
and  those  people  who  took  the  liberty  of  adding  a 
cup  of  hot  coffee  or  tea  to  the  Sunday  dinner  were 
regarded  as  lax  in  their  Sunday  observances.  In  the 
greater  number  of  colonial  houses  among  the 
ordinarily  well-to-do  it  was  absolutely  forbidden  to 
light  fires  for  purposes  of  cooking  even  of  the 
smallest  sort  on  the  Lord's  Day. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE   PROSPERITY  OF  THE   COLONIES 

DURING  the  colonial  period  the  great  majority 
of  people  everywhere  thought  it  no  wrong  to 
hold  negroes  in  slavery.  As  a  consequence 
there  were  negro  slaves  in  all  the  colonies.  But  as 
the  value  of  their  labor  was  very  small  at  the  North 
and  very  large  at  the  South  most  of  the  negro 
slaves  were  held  in  the  southern  colonies.  There 
was  nowhere  any  law  enacted  directly  to  authorize 
any  white  man  to  hold  any  negro  in  slavery.  All 
that  was  taken  for  granted,  and  was  the  common  law 
of  the  time.  Laws  with  respect  to  the  treatment 
both  of  negro  slaves  and  of  white  indentured  serv 
ants  were  common,  but  there  was  nowhere  a  spe 
cific  statute  authorizing  negro  slavery. 

It  is  also  true  that   the   greater   part  of  the  white 

bondsmen    sent   out   from    England   and   sold   into 

temporary  servitude  were   purchased  in   the  South. 

This  was  because    of  the   great   plantations    there, 

218 


PROSPERITY  OF  THE  COLONIES       219 

where  farm  labor,  and  such  other  labor  as  unskilled 
persons  could  perform,  was  in  greater  demand  than 
in  the  northern  colonies. 

In  Virginia,  as  the  Revolution  approached,  fully 
one  half  of  the  total  population  were  negro  slaves. 
There  were  also  a  great  number  of  white  bonds 
men,  so  that  in  Virginia  greatly  more  than  one  half 
of  the  population  consisted  of  men  bound  in  one 
way  or  another  to  service,  and  who  had  no  part  in 
the  government  of  the  community. 

This  was  not  democratic,  of  course,  and  still  less 
democratic  was  the  provision  of  Virginian  law  that 
only  those  free  white  men  who  owned  land  in  pre 
scribed  amounts  should  be  permitted  to  share  in 
the  government  as  voters. 

In  South  Carolina — owing  to  the  introduction  of 
indigo  culture,  and  owing  also  to  the  pestilential  na 
ture  of  the  rice  fields,  in  which  negroes  could  live 
and  be  healthy  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  while 
white  men  could  not  live  in  them  at  all  during  the 
summer  and  autumn  months — the  negro  slaves  by 
this  time  very  greatly  outnumbered  the  total  white 
population.  An  estimate,  fairly  trustworthy,  reckons 
the  population  of  South  Carolina  in  1773  at  sixty- 
five  thousand  whites  and  one  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  blacks. 


220  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

These  conditions  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas 
went  far  to  encourage  and  develop  the  aristocratic 
system  that  prevailed  in  those  colonies.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  sharp  distinction  between  negroes 
and  white  men  in  those  colonies  led  to  the  fullest 
possible  political  recognition  of  a  white  skin  as  nec 
essary  to  entitle  its  owner  to  his  share  in  the  gov 
ernment  and  even  the  man  with  the  white  skin  was 
disfranchised  unless  he  owned  a  specific  amount  of 
property.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  equal  man 
hood  suffrage  in  most  of  the  colonies  even  among 
white  men.  Property  and  religious  qualifications 
were  insisted  upon  even  after  the  Revolution. 

The  colonies  had  by  this  time  become  populous 
in  a  degree  which  we  now  scarcely  realize.  As 
early  as  1760  there  were  five  hundred  thousand 
people  in  Virginia  and  by  1775  this  population  had 
been  increased  by  fifteen  or  twenty  per  cent. 

In  Massachusetts  there  were  three  hundred 
thousand  people  in  1760,  and  the  population  there 
increased  even  more  rapidly  between  that  time  and 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  than  that  of  Vir 
ginia  had  done. 

The  New  England  colonies,  taken  together  as  a 
single  group,  had  a  population  of  more  than  six  hun 
dred  thousand  people.  The  population  of  the  mid- 


PROSPERITY  OF  THE  COLONIES       221 

die  colonies  numbered  no  less  than  four  hundred 
thousand  men,  women  and  children. 

In  brief,  a  nation  had  been  established  and  built 
up  in  America  and  it  needed  only  the  nagging  in 
terference  of  British  aggression  to  induce  this  great 
population  to  assert  its  nationality  and  its  right  to 
self-government. 

In  the  southern  and  middle  colonies  a  vast  agri 
cultural  prosperity  had  been  built  up.  These  col 
onies  were  producing  wheat,  and  corn,  and  indigo, 
and  rice,  to  say  nothing  of  minor  products,  in  such 
abundance  that  they  were  able  to  ship  them  to  all 
parts  of  the  world  on  board  the  New  England  built 
schooners  and  square-riggers,  which  were  plough 
ing  every  sea  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  in  search  of 
profit  for  a  people  whose  land  was  infertile  and 
whose  climate  was  inhospitable,  but  whose  people 
were  hardy,  shrewd  and  enterprising.  So  great  had 
this  New  England  commerce  become  that  at  the 
time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  American  Revolution 
it  is  estimated  that  New  England  alone  had  one 
ship  at  sea  for  every  one  hundred  inhabitants 
within  its  borders. 

The  method  of  this  commerce  is  a  matter  of  in 
teresting  study.  A  great  many  of  the  ships  were 
built  and  owned  not  by  great  corporations  or  rich 


222  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


merchants  but  by  the  plain  people  of  the  ports  from 
which  they  sailed.  Every  one  of  the  men  who  sailed 
in  them,  from  captain  to  cabin  boy,  had  an  interest 
in  the  ship  and  in  the  profits  of  its  cruising.  The 
people  of  a  little  town  would  get  together,  decide 
upon  building  and  sailing  a  ship  and  invest  their  little 
savings  in  what  was  called  "  the  adventure."  They 
were  all  hardy  sailors  and  skilled  ones,  trained  to  the 

service  of  the  sea 
from  their  earliest 
boyhood,  daring, 
resolute,  shrewd,  in- 
g  e  n  i  o  u  s.  Often 
there  was  not  a 
man  on  board  over 
twenty  years  of  age 

Old  whale  ships.  frQm    the    captain  to 

the  scullion.  The  crew  was  a  company  of  partners, 
every  man  of  whom  was  interested  in  the  success  of 
whatever  ventures  the  ship  might  undertake.  It 
was  usually  the  people  of  the  town  from  which  the 
ship  sailed  who  furnished  her  with  her  outgoing 
cargo  and  it  was  through  them  that  sale  was  made 
of  any  cargo  that  she  might  bring  back. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  commerce  of  this  kind  was 
profitable  in  the  extreme,  and  very  easy  to  conduct. 


PROSPERITY   OF  THE  COLONIES       223 

The  men  knew  how  to  sail  a  ship  and  they  were  not 
mere  hirelings  whose  interest  in  the  voyage  ended 
with  the  payment  of  their  wages  at  its  end.  They 
were  themselves  joint  owners  of  the  ship  and  its 
cargo,  and  were  to  be  at  the  end  of  the  voyage 
sharers  in  whatever  profits  the  voyage  might  yield. 
The  enterprising  ones  among  them  looked  forward 
confidently  to  the  time  when  they  should  own  and 
sail  ships  on  their  own  account. 

Referring  to  this  wonderful  commerce  built  up  in 
so  short  a  time  by  a  colonial  people,  Edmund  Burke 
said  this  : 

"  No  sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries. 
No  climate  that  is  not  witness  of  their  toils. 
Neither  the  perseverance  of  Holland,  nor  the  ac 
tivity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous  and  firm  sagacity 
of  English  enterprise,  ever  carried  this  most  perilous 
mode  of  industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has  been 
pushed  by  this  resolute  people — a  people  who  are 
still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet 
hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

EDUCATION     IN     THE     COLONIES PECULIAR     CUSTOMS 

A   PEOPLE  so  busy  as  the  Americans  of  that 
time  were,  both   North  and  South,  and  so  far 

more  dependent  upon  physical  exertion  than 
upon  intellectual  resources  for  their  prosperity,  very 
naturally  gave  less  attention  to  popular  education 
than  they  might  otherwise  have  done.  Yet  educa 
tion  was  not  neglected  among  them.  Documents 
written  in  that  time,  and  even  such  books  and  news 
papers  as  were  printed  then,  show  a  laxity  of  spell 
ing  which  in  our  days  would  be  regarded  as 
indicative  of  ignorance.  It  was  the  custom  even  of 
educated  men  to  spell  the  verb  be,  "Bee"  with  a 
capital  letter  at  the  beginning  of  it  and  to  spell  other 
words  in  an  equally  eccentric  manner. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  at  that 
time  the  spelling  of  English  words  was  not  fully  de 
termined  and  fixed,  even  among  the  best  scholars  in 
England.  It  might  almost  be  said  that  everybody, 
in  the  colonies  at  least,  spelled  words  in  Sam 

224 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLONIES        225 

Weller's  way,  according  to  his  own  "  taste  and 
fancy."  Correctness  of  spelling  was  therefore  not 
at  that  time  a  test  of  education  and  culture  as  it  is 
in  our  day. 

As  to  the  use  of  capital   letters  at  the   beginning 
of  words,  the  practice  at  that  time  differed  radically 


iiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiji 


King's  College  (now  Columbia),  Barclay  Street  and  College  Place, 
N.  Y.;  cornerstone  laid  in  1756. 

from  that  of  our  own  day.  It  was  after  the  end  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  that  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  as 
a  printer  and  a  scholar  was  a  special  student  of  such 
matters,  wrote  a  letter  defending  the  older  usage  of 
beginning  all  the  nouns,  verbs  and  other  principal 
words  in  every  sentence  with  capital  letters. 

Arithmetic  in  the  colonial  period  was  taught  upon 


226  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

plans  that  would  now  be  deemed  preposterous. 
The  multiplication  of  three  or  more  figures  by 
three  or  more  other  figures  was  accomplished  by  a 
process  so  ingeniously  complicated  that  any  school 
boy  or  girl  of  our  time  would  look  upon  it  as  a 
veritable  Chinese  puzzle. 

Geography   and    history  were   not    taught   at  all 
in  the   schools,  but  in  New  England   the  returning 


A  form  of  stocks. 

sailors  were  unconscious  missionaries  of  practical 
geographical  learning.  The  more  highly  educated 
colonists  were,  of  course,  diligent  readers  of  history 
for  the  sake  of  political  instruction.  Even  the 
art  of  reading  had  no  adequate  aid  from  school 
books.  Until  long  after  the  middle  of  the  eight 
eenth  century  there  was  no  school  "  Reader "  in 
existence  anywhere.  Indeed  up  to  that  time  educa- 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLONIES       227 

tion  rested  almost  exclusively  upon  Latinity  and  in 
England  as  well  as  in  this  country  the  schoolmasters 
who  set  out  to  educate  a  boy — it  was  not  thought 
necessary  to  educate  girls — proceeded  from  begin 
ning  to  end  upon  the  theory  that  education  con 
sisted  of  a  knowledge  of  Latin.  A  scholarly  knowl 
edge  of  the  English  language  was  regarded  as  a 
matter  of  no  consequence  whatever. 

At  last,  many  years  later,  near  the  end  of  the 
century  indeed,  Lindley  Murray  put  forth  the  first 
English  grammar. 
Its  conjugations 
were  simply  transla 
tions  of  the  Latin 
verb  forms.  It  was 
in  fact  not  an  Eng 
lish  grammar  at  all, 
but  an  attempt  to  Ducking  stool. 

present  the  English  language  in  Latin  harness.  "  I 
might,  could,  would  or  should  have  been  loved " 
was  set  down  as  an  inflection  of  the  verb  cc  to  love," 
and  other  forms  of  speech  equally  far  from  being 
inflections  of  the  verb  were  given  as  such.  Thus 
the  stream  of  English  grammar  was  poisoned  at  its 
fountain  head,  and  even  unto  this  day  it  has  not 
been  fully  disinfected  although  intelligent  school- 


228  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

masters  in  our  time  have  done  much  to  rid  the 
teaching  of  English  of  its  Latin  swaddling  clothes. 
There  is  a  peculiar  fact  which  deserves  mention. 
There  were  no  steel  or  gold  pens  in  existence  in  the 
colonial  times.  The  only  pens  in  use  were  whittled 
out  of  goose  quills,  and  every  man  had  to  make 
them  for  himself  as  best  he  could.  Such  pens  rap 
idly  softened  under  the  chemical  action  of  ink  and 
they  were  quickly  worn  out  by  the  friction  of  writ 
ing.  Yet  a  comparison  of  the  manuscripts  of  that 
time  with  those  of  the  present  shows  clearly  that  the 
men  and  women  of  the  later  colonial  period  with 
their  very  imperfect  implements  wrote,  as  a  rule, 
more  legibly,  more  neatly,  and  more  elegantly,  than 
do  the  majority  of  the  men  and  women  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Another  peculiar  fact  is  that 
while  there  were  no  text-books 
of  grammar  or  rhetoric  in  school 
use  at  that  time,  the  men  of  the 
later    colonial   and   the   revolu 
tionary  periods  wrote  and  spoke 
the   English    language   with   an 
A  scold,  gagged.          easCj  a  grace}  a  vigor  and  an  ef 
fectiveness,  which  the  best  writers   and   speakers  of 
to-day  might  well  envy.     The  English  of  Samuel 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLONIES       229 

Adams,  James  Otis,  Patrick  Henry,  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  and  a  multitude  of  their  fellows,  was  graceful 
and  masterful  in  a  degree  that  is  rarely  matched  in 
our  later  and  more  technically  instructed  time. 

Under  laws  which  have  been  referred  to  in  a  pre 
vious  chapter,  popular  schools  were  early  established 
in  Massachusetts  and  the  other  New  England  colo 
nies,  for  the  education  of  all  the  people  in  the  arts 
of  reading,  writing,  and  "  the  casting  of  accounts." 
But  their  methods  of  instruction  were  crude  and 
their  results  meager  in  the  extreme.  In  the  other 
colonies  even  these  imperfect  aids  to  popular  educa 
tion  scarcely  at  all  existed. 

Yet  there  was  everywhere  a  concern  for  educa 
tion.  In  the  middle  and  southern  colonies  there 
were  a  few  academies  for  the  education  of  such 
youths  as  could  afford  to  attend  them. 

There  were  "  old  field  schools  "  also,  particularly 
in  Virginia.  The  old  field  school  was  held  usually 
in  a  rude  log  house  in  the  midst  of  the  scrub  pines 
which  had  grown  up  in  a  field  that  had  been  ex 
hausted  of  its  fertility  by  unwise  cultivation.  It  was 
a  pay  school  always  and  its  discipline  was  that  of 
the  oxgoad.  Its  master  was  usually  a  scholarly 
personage  who  thrashed  Latin  into  his  pupils  with 
very  little  concern  for  anything  else.  They  might 


230  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

spell  English  words  as  they  pleased  without  en 
countering  any  serious  objection  on  his  part,  but  the 
use  of  a  false  quantity  in  the  construction  of  a  Latin 
verse  was  apt  to  awaken  his  ire. 

Many  of  the  greater  planters  employed  scholarly 
men  to  serve  as  tutors  to  their  children  and  from 
that  source,  perhaps,,  more  than  from  any  other,  in 
the  South  at  least,  came  the  education  of  that  time 
which  produced  the  great  men  of  the  revolutionary 
period.  John  Marshall,  the  greatest  jurist  whom 
this  country  has  ever  known,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
jurists  in  all  the  history  of  the  world,  was  educated 
almost  entirely  in  this  way. 

But  there  were  colleges  also — more  of  them  than 
are  commonly  thought  of.  Harvard  was  established 
in  1636;  William  and  Mary  in  Virginia  in  1693; 
Yale  in  Connecticut  in  1700;  Princeton  in  1746; 
King's  College — now  Columbia  in  New  York  City— 
in  1754;  the  College  of  Philadelphia — now  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania — in  1755;  Brown  Uni 
versity  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,in  1764;  Dart 
mouth  in  New  Hampshire  in  1769;  Rutgers  in 
New  Jersey  in  1770. 

In  these  institutions  of  learning  the  sons  of  men 
who  had  means  were  educated  as  fully  and  as  well 
as  it  was  possible  to  educate  them  at  that  time. 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  COLONIES        231 

In  the  South  it  became  customary  for  planters  of 
adequate  means  to  send  at  least  one  son  of  each 
family  to  Europe  to  be  educated  there.  These 
young  men  were  sent  chiefly  to  Oxford  or  Cam 
bridge  in  England,  but  some  of  them  were  sent  to 
Paris  or  to  the  German  universities.  Their  educa 
tion  thus  included  something  more  than  scholastic 
training,  and  they  brought  back  with  them  to  this 
country  the  enlightenment  and  the  broadened  minds 
which  travel  and  contact  with  the  men  and  the  insti 
tutions,  the  habits,  the  customs  and  the  ways  of  liv 
ing  of  other  nations  alone  can  give. 

In  one  respect  the  educated  Americans  of  that 
time  were  peculiarly  well  educated.  It  was  said  of 
them  by  a  great  English  observer  that  they  were, 
almost  all  of  them,  men  learned  in  the  law.  As  we 
read  the  records  of  that  time  the  reason  for  this 
is  obvious  enough.  These  men  were  engaged  in 
a  continuous  struggle  for  their  rights  as  English 
men  and  in  that  struggle  their  attention  was  centered 
constantly  upon  the  broad  principles  of  English 
law.  Those  of  them  who  were  lawyers  by  pro 
fession  were  learned  and  able  lawyers — many  of 
them  even  great  in  their  profession.  Samuel 
Adams,  John  Adams,  James  Otis,  John  Marshall, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  George  Mason,  Patrick  Henry — 


232  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

there  were  never  anywhere  greater  lawyers  than 
these.  But  among  the  educated  folk  of  New  Eng 
land  and  the  southern  colonies  even  those  men  who 
were  not  lawyers  by  profession  were  trained  by  daily 
thought  and  constant  controversy  into  a  knowledge 
of  the  broad  principles  of  law,  such  as  no  law  school 
of  the  present  day  gives  to  its  graduates. 

In  theological  learning  also  the  clergymen  of  the 
colonial  times  excelled.  They  were  masters  not 
only  of  all  that  had  gone  before  in  theological  con 
troversy  and  all  that  was  then  known  of  logistics, 
but  they  were  grand  masters  also  of  the  art  of  pre 
senting  and  enforcing  theological  thought  in  an  ef 
fective  and  convincing  way.  Such  men  as  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  his  kind  have  known  no  superiors  in 
their  profession  from  that  day  to  this. 

In  medicine,  on  the  other  hand,  the  grossest  ig 
norance  and  superstition  prevailed.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  medical  science  was  not  yet  born 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  was  not  born  indeed 
until  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In 
colonial  times  doctors  were  very  easily  made.  Some 
times  a  young  man  went  to  a  medical  college  in  Eng 
land  or  Scotland  for  a  brief  course,  saw  a  single  sub 
ject  dissected,  but  did  no  dissection  himself;  heard 
two  or  three  courses  of  lectures,  and  at  the  end  of  the 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS  233 

nine  or  ten  months,  was  graduated  as  a  full-fledged 
physician.  Usually  the  medical  student  did  not  at 
tend  any  college,  but  merely  "  rode  with  a  doctor  " 
for  a  year  or  so.  He  knew  less  in  fact  when  he  re 
ceived  his  diploma  or  set  himself  up  in  practice 
without  a  diploma,  than  the  medical  student  of  to 
day  learns  in  the  first  year  or  even  in  the  first  month 
of  his  study. 

The  doctors  of  that  time  believed  largely  in 
charms.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  causes  of  dis 
ease.  If  a  man  had  a  fever  they  bled  him  until  the 
fever  abated.  They  gave  him  medicines  many  of 
which  are  now  known  to  be  absolutely  without  any 
medicinal  effect  whatever.  If  a  man  had  an  intesti 
nal  trouble  which  the  doctor  of  to-day  would  diagnos 
ticate  as  appendicitis,  they  let  him  die,  and  called  it 
cramp  colic.  Such  surgery  as  they  knew  in  that  time 
had  not  taught  them  how  to  operate  for  the  relief  of 
many  of  the  commonest  and  most  dangerous  ail 
ments  to  which  human  flesh  is  heir. 

In  dealing  with  wounds  their  methods  were  crude 
and  even  cruel.  They  knew  nothing  of  anaesthet 
ics  and  their  knowledge  even  of  the  disinfection  of 
wounds  was  crude  and  empirical. 

For  example,  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  if  a 
man  had  a  wound  in  his  leg  or  his  arm  which  required 


234  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

that  the  member  should  be  cut  off,  the  amputation 
was  done  by  the  surgeon  without  the  administration 
of  anything  that  might  ease  the  pain  and  at  the  end 
of  it  the  stump  of  the  amputated  limb  was  plunged 
into  hot  tar.  This  prevented  destructive  inflam 
mation,  but  it  involved  an  enormous  amount  of  suf 
fering  on  the  part  of  the  patient. 

Many  of  the  doctors  of  that  time  were  acquainted 
with  less  than  a  dozen  drugs.  They  knew  little  of 
anatomy,  nothing  of  chemistry,  and  almost  nothing 
of  hygiene.  They  were  full  of  superstitions.  It 
was  the  practice  of  many  of  them  to  carry  around 
with  them  a  cane,  in  the  head  of  which  certain  herbs 
were  inclosed.  When  they  were  present  in  the  sick 
room  of  a  smallpox  patient,  for  example,  they  smelt 
of  this  cane  head  as  a  means  of  preventing  themselves 
from  taking  the  disease.  Curiously  enough  they  do 
not  appear  to  have  offered  similar  cane  heads  for 
the  use  of  their  patients  or  of  the  friends  of  their 
patients. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  the  conditions  of  life 
during  the  colonial  period,  especially  those  con 
ditions  which  were  created  by  reason  of  ignorance  or 
neglect.  So  far  as  historians  can  discover  there  was 
no  part  of  the  country,  north  or  south,  in  which  any 
householder  or  any  merchant  stored  ice  in  the  winter 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS  235 

for  use  in  the  summer.  The  result  of  this  was  that 
in  the  summer  time  meats,  and  milk,  and  other 
things,  that  require  refrigeration  to  preserve  them, 


In  a  New  England  meeting  house. 

were    dependent    upon    such     coolness    as    spring 
houses  might  afford. 

There  were  no  stoves  in  existence  and  there  were 


236  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

no  furnaces  for  the  better  heating  of  houses,  no  steam 
heat  appliances  and  no  hot  water  supplies. 

Even  the  churches  were  without  heat  of  any  kind. 
There  are  records  in  New  England  documents  of 
that  time  showing  that  people  attended  services, 
which  lasted  for  hours  at  a  time,  when  the  tempera 
ture  in  the  church  was  many  degrees  below  zero. 
The  patience  of  the  people  in  this  respect  is  largely 
to  be  accounted  for  by  their  devotion  to  religion  as 
the  primary  concern  of  human  beings.  In  every 
house  there  were  family  prayers,  night  and  morning, 
which  every  member  of  the  household  was  expected 
to  attend.  At  every  meal  there  was  grace  said  be 
fore  meat  and  thanks  given  afterward.  In  every 
house  it  was  deemed  not  only  a  duty  but  a  delight 
to  entertain  the  preacher,  and  the  preachers  in  their 
turn  held  it  to  be  their  duty  to  assemble  the  family, 
speak  words  of  admonition  to  them  and  hold  prayers 
in  their  presence. 

In  New  England  the  government  of  the  people 
was  exceedingly  minute,  the  town  meeting  regulating 
everything  that  concerned  the  common  interest.  It 
chose  selectmen  to  administer  "the  town's  will," 
as  that  will  had  been  expressed  in  the  town  meeting. 
It  selected  a  constable  to  keep  order  and  a  clerk  to 
keep  a  record  of  the  town's  affairs.  This  record 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS  237 

was  minute  and  varied  in  its  character.  It  included 
almost  everything  that  could  in  any  way  affect  the 
public  interest. 

Professor  Andrew  C.  McLaughlin,  in  his  very  in 
teresting  "  History  of  the  American  Nation/'  gives 
some  extracts  from  town  records,  illustrating  the 
extent  and  the  minuteness  of  government  in  that 
time  and  the  varied  character  of  the  records  kept. 

Among  the  passages  quoted  by  Professor  Mc 
Laughlin  is  this  one  : 

"  It  is  ordered  that  all  doggs,  for  the  space  of  three 
weeks  after  the  piblishinge  hereof,  shall  have  one  legg 
tied  up  .  .  .  If  a  man  refuses  to  tye  up  his  dogg's 
legg  and  he  Bee  found  scraping  up  fish  in  the  corne 
field  the  man  shall  pay  twelve  shillings  besides  what 
ever  damage  the  dogg  doth." 

This  enactment  was  made,  without  doubt,  in  the 
interest  of  New  England  agriculture.  The  cultiva 
tors  had  learned  from  the  Indians  to  enrich  their 
fields  by  burying  fish  in  the  corn-hills,  and  the 
underfed  dogs  of  that  time  were  apparently  accus 
tomed  to  plunder  the  corn  of  its  nutriment. 

Professor  McLaughlin  tells  us,  as  have  other 
writers  upon  the  history  of  that  time,  that  births, 
deaths  and  marriages,  the  transfer  of  pews  in  the 
meeting  house,  the  taking  up  of  stray  animals,  etc., 


238    LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

were  all  recorded  by  the  clerk  in  the  town  records. 
Mr.  McLaughlin  quotes  for  example  a  record  con 
cerning  an  estray  that  had  been  taken  up  which 
reads  as  follows  : 

"  A  Red  Stray  Hefer  two  years  old  and  she  hath 
sum  white  In  the  face." 

He  quotes  also  some  records  showing  the  cattle 
marks  adopted  by  the  different  farmers  for  the  identi 
fication  of  their  animals  running  wild  upon  the  com 
mon  lands.  One  of  these  reads  as  follows  : 

"Joshua  Brigs  mark  Is  a  Seward  Crop  In  the 
underside  of  ye  Right  ear." 

The  town  meeting  appointed  men  to  do  everything 
that  needed  to  be  done  for  the  governance  and  regu 
lation  of  life  in  the  town. 

Quoting  again  from  McLaughlin,  we  give  this 
list  of  the  petty  officers  appointed  in  a  single  town  : 

Tithing  men,  fence  viewers,  hog  reeves,  measurers 
of  wood,  overseers  of  measurers  of  wood,  "  men  to 
take  care  of  the  Alewives  not  Being  stopped  from 
going  up  the  Revers  to  cast  their  sporns."  Men  to 
prevent  cheating  by  those  who  sold  lumber,  "be 
cause  bundles  of  shingles  are  marked  for  a  greater 
number  than  what  they  contain."  Wardens  to  in 
spect  "  ye  meeting  house  on  ye  Lord's  Day,  and  see 
to  Good  Order  among  ye  Boys  ;  "  Cattle  pounders, 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS 


239 


sealers  of  leather,  game  keepers  "  to  Bee  the  men 
for  Prevesation  of  the  Deare  for  the  year  Insu- 
ing." 

The  religious  sentiment  in  the  New  England 
colonies  strongly  discouraged  public  amusements  of 
every  kind  as  sinful  indulgences  unworthy  of  men 


Present  territory  of  the  United  States,  showing  by  whom  it  was  claimed 
before  1763. 

and  women  with  souls  to  be  saved.  Indeed  there 
is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  in  many  stern  minds 
of  that  time  and  country,  happiness  itself  was  a  sin 
sure  to  be  visited  with  punishment  in  a  future  life. 
But  neither  laws  nor  the  restraints  of  a  misguided 


240  LIFE  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

public  opinion  can  alter  human  nature  or  successfully 
thwart  its  impulses.  The  New  England  people,  de 
prived  as  they  were  of  theaters,  shows,  balls  and 
other  entertainments,  found  amusement  and  diver 
sion  in  attending  the  solemn  lectures  upon  religious 
themes  which  were  common  in  that  region.  In 
every  town  and  village  the  weekly  "  lecture  day," 
became  a  time  of  social  intercourse  and  enjoyment. 
The  lectures  were  very  long,  and  doubtless  very  dry 
discourses,  but  they  afforded  an  opportunity  for 
meeting  one's  neighbors,  and  for  more  or  less  of 
social  visiting.  They  were  held  about  midday,  partly 
because  of  the  scarcity  and  cost  of  candles,  and  partly 
because  those  who  attended  them,  as  pretty  nearly 
everybody  did,  must  make  long  homeward  journeys 
afterwards.  As  a  consequence,  lecture  day  meant  a 
day  practically  lost  from  work,  and  as  many  of  the 
people  were  accustomed  to  attend  lectures  in  three 
or  four  different  towns  each  week  and  on  different 
days,  the  indulgence  took  on  the  character  of  a 
dissipation  seriously  hurtful  to  the  public  pros 
perity.  It  became  necessary  at  last  to  regulate  the 
practice  by  law  and  restrain  undue  indulgence  in 
it. 

In  Boston  curfew  was  rung  at  nine  o'clock  every 
night,  and  at  that  hour  everybody  was  expected  to 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS  241 

go  to  bed.  Another  abuse  with  which  the  law  had 
at  last  to  interfere,  was  common  to  both  the  north 
ern  and  the  southern  colonies.  This  was  the  lavish 
feasting  at  funerals.  There  is  a  record  showing 
that  the  wine  alone  drunk  at  one  Virginia  funeral, 
cost  no  less  than  four  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco. 
It  was  the  custom  at  funerals  for  the  bereaved  family, 
besides  the  giving  of  a  costly  feast  to  those  in  at 
tendance,  to  furnish  each  with  a  pair  of  rather  ex- 


The  Beekman  Coach. 


pensive  gloves.  At  one  Massachusetts  funeral  no 
less  than  three  thousand  pairs  of  gloves  were  thus 
bestowed,  and  an  old  New  York  letter,  still  pre 
served,  tells  us  that  its  writer,  by  frequent  attendance 
upon  funerals,  had  accumulated  a  supply  of  gloves 


242  LIFE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

sufficient  to  last  a  lifetime.  It  was  necessary  at 
last  to  impose  legal  restraint  upon  these  excesses 
in  some  of  the  colonies,  in  order  that  the  funeral 
might  not  impoverish  the  bereaved  survivors  of  the 
family. 

Until  nearly  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
there  were  very  few  wheeled  vehicles  of  any  kind  in 
the  colonies.  But  as  the  settlements  were  extended 
inland,  roads  were  opened  and  wheeled  carriages  came 
more  and  more  into  use.  During  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  however,  these  were  all  light 
shays,  and  it  was  not  until  that  century  was  well 
advanced  that  heavier  carriages  of  the  kind  then 
known  as  coaches  appeared.  Because  of  the  bad 
ness  of  the  roads  the  coaches  were  very  heavily 
built  and  were  usually  drawn  by  four  horses.  Only 
the  rich  could  afford  them,  and  the  "setting  up  of  a 
coach  "  was  therefore  an  accepted  indication  of 
wealth.  Often  it  was  also  a  sign  of  ostentation. 

In  this  volume  and  its  predecessor  "  Our  First 
Century,"  an  effort  has  been  made  to  show  forth  in 
some  degree  the  conditions  of  life,  and  the  manners, 
customs  and  habits  of  thought  that  prevailed  in  the 
English  colonies  in  America  during  the  period  of 
nearly  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  that  elapsed 
between  the  planting  of  the  first  settlement  at  James^ 


PECULIAR  CUSTOMS  243 

town,  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  It  is  a 
record  of  nation-building  unsurpassed  in  the  world's 
history  as  a  story  of  courage,  energy,  endurance  and 
heroic  endeavor. 

THE  END 


APPENDIX 

TABLE    OF    IMPORTANT    CONTEMPO 
RANEOUS  EVENTS 


ENGLAND. 


ENGLISH  COLONIES. 


FRENCH-SPANISH 
COLONIES. 


Act  of  Settlement,  1701. 
The  Grand  Alliance,  1701. 
Death  of  William  III,  1702. 


Queen  Anne,  1702-1714. 
War  with  France,  1702-1713 

(Spanish  succession). 
Marlborough's  victory  at  French 

Blenheim,  1704. 


Union  of  England  and 
Scotland,  1707. 

Landing  of  James  Edward, 
"The  Old  Pretender,"  in 
Scotland,  1708. 


Act  estab.    Colonial  Post 
Office, 1710. 


Treaty  of  Utrecht  with 
France,  1713. 

The  Assiento  Treaty  with 
Spain,  1713. 

George  I,  1714-1727. 

Jacobite  Kising  in  Scot 
land,  1715-16. 


Yale  College  founded, 
1701. 

Pennsylvania  Charter  of 
Privileged,  1701. 

New  Jersey  a  Royal  Prov 
ince,  1702. 

Delaware  separates  from 
Pennsylvania,  1702-03. 

Queen  Anne's  War,  1702-13. 


and  Indians  de 
stroy  Deerfield,  Mass., 
1704. 

Spanish  and  French  attack 
on  South  Carolina,  1706. 


Detroit  founded,  1701. 
Mobile  founded,  1701. 


French  and  Indian  attack 
on  Haverhill,  Mass., 
1708. 

Immigration  of  the  Pala 
tines  to  New  York  and 
other  Germans  to  Penn 
sylvania,  1709. 


Indian  wars  in  North  Car 
olina,  1711-13. 


Maryland  again  a  Proprie 
tary  Province,  1715. 

Goy.  Spotswood  of  Vir 
ginia  explores  the  Blue 
Ridge,  171G. 

Increase  of  German  and 
begin'ng  of  Scotch-Irish 
immigration  to  Pennsyl 
vania,  1717-27. 


New  England  expedition 
against  Port  Royal 
failed,  1707. 


English  capture  Port  Roy 
al,  change  name  to  An 
napolis,  1710. 

Unsuccessful  expedition 
against  Canada,  1711. 

Cession  of  Nova  Scotia 
and  Newfoundland  to 
Great  Britain,  1713. 


NewOrleans  founded,  1717. 


245 


246 


APPENDIX 


ENGLAND. 


ENGLISH  COLONIES. 


FRENCH-SPANISH 
COLONIES. 


Attack  upon  the  Colonial 
Charters,  1720-21. 


Sea    Bubble, 


The   South 

1720-21. 
Administration  of  Robert 

Walpole,  1721-42. 


Act  restricting  hat  manuf . 

in  Colonies,  1732. 
Molasses   Act,  regulating 

Colonial  trade,  1733. 


Act  restraining    Colonial 
woolen  manuf.,  1738. 


War  with  Spain,  1739-1748. 

Act    prohibiting    paper 

money  in  Colonies,  1740. 


WarwithFrance,  1744-1748 
(Austrian  Succession). 


The  Rising  of  the  Young 
Pretender:  Second  Jac 
obite  Rebellion,  1745. 
Defeat  at  Culloden. 

The  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle,  1748. 


Act  restricting  iron  manu 
facture  in  Colonies,  1750. 

New  Act  against  paper 
money  in  Colonies,  1751. 

Adoption  of  the  Reform 
or  Gregorian  Calendar, 
1752. 


Rev.  against  Proprietary 
Govt.  in  South  Carolina 
1719-20. 

First  Royal  Gov.  in  South 
Carolina,  1721. 

Defence  of  Massachusetts 
Charter,  1721. 

Massachusetts  Explana 
tory  Charter,  1725. 

Contest  over  the  salary  of 
the  Governor  in  Massa 
chusetts,  1728-35. 

North  Carolina  becomes  a 
Royal  Province,  1729. 

Division     of     North    i 
South  Carolina. 


Georgia  Charter,  1732. 
Savannah  founded,  1733. 


Salzburgers  and  Scotch- 
Highlanders  in  Georgia 
1734-3(5. 

New  Jersey  separate  Roy 
al  Governor,  1738. 


New  Hampshire,  separate 
Royal  Governor,  1741. 

Spanish  attack  on  Georgia 
repulsed,  1742. 

King  George's  War,  1744- 
1748. 

New  England  troops  cap 
ture  Louisburg,  1744. 


The  Ohio  Company  char 
tered,  1749. 

Nova  Scotia  colonized  by 
the  English  govt.,  1750. 


Georgia  a  Royal  Province, 
1752. 


Yincennes  founded,  1735. 


Dglethorpe's  expedition 
against  Florida,  1740. 

Colonists  join  expedition 
against  Cuba,  a  failure, 
1741. 


jouisburg    returned    to 

France,  1748. 
Toronto  founded,  1749. 
French  expedition  to  the 

Ohio  ATalley,  1749. 
Boundary  dispute    over 

Nova  Scotia,  1750. 


Gov.  Duquesne's  proclam 
ation,  1753. 

Establishment  of  Ft.  Du- 
quesne,  1753. 

Washington's  mission  to 
the  French,  1753. 


APPENDIX 


247 


ENGLAND.                 ENGLISH   COLONIES.         FRENCH-SPANISH 
COLONIES. 

Colonial  Congress  at  Al 

Washington's    expedition 

bany,  1754. 

against  the  Fort,  1754. 

Plan  of  union. 

War  with  France,  1755-63. 

French  and  Indian  War, 

(Seven  Years'  War.) 

1754-1763. 
Braddock's  defeat,  1755. 

Colonial    governors    pro 

pose  a  stamp  tax,  etc., 

1755. 

Newcastle-Pitt    Ministry, 

Massacre  at  Ft.  William 

1757-1761. 

Henry,  1757. 

English    capture  Ft.  Du- 

English     capture    Louis- 

quesne,  1758. 

burg,  1758. 

Renamed  Ft.  Pitt. 

Battle  of  Quiberon  Bay, 
1759. 

English   capture    Niagara 
and  Ticonderoga,  1759. 

Capture  of  Quebec,  1759. 
Surrender     of      Montreal 

George  III,  1760-1820. 
Pitt  resigns,  1761. 

Argument  on  Writs  of  As 

and  all  Canada,  1760. 

Act  regulating    naturali 

sistance    in    Massachu 

zation  in  the  Colonies, 

setts,  by  Otis,  1761. 

Capture   of  French  West 

1761. 

Indies,  1762. 

War    declared    against 

Capture  of  Havana  from 

Spain,  January,  17G2. 
Treaty  of  Paris,  1763. 

Pontiac's  conspiracy,  1763. 
Proclamation  Line  estab 

Spanish,  1762. 
Cession  of    Louisiana    to 
Spain,  1762. 

Ministry  of  George  Gren- 

October,  1763. 

French  lose  all  possession 

ville,  1763-65. 

English   Colonies  of  East 

on  continent,  1763. 

and  West  Florida  estab. 

Spain  exchanges    Florida 

for  Havana,  1763. 

John  Wilkes  and  No.  45, 

The  Parson's  Case  in  Vir 

"North  Briton,"  1763. 

ginia,  1763. 

Parliament  asserts    right 

Otis  on  The  Rights  of  the 

to  tax  Colonies,  March, 

Colonies,  1764. 

1764. 

Sugar  Act,  April,  1764. 

Stamp  Act,  March,  1765. 

Henry's  Resolution  adopt 

Quartering    Act,    April, 

ed  by  Virginia   Assem 

1765. 

bly,  May,  1765. 

Rockingham's      Ministry, 

Massachusetts  calls  a  Co 

1765-66. 

lonial    Congress,  June, 

Examination  of  Franklin 

1765. 

by  House  of  Commons. 

Stamp  Act  Congress,  Oc 

Repeal    of     Stamp    Act, 

tober,  1765. 

March,  1766. 

248  APPENDIX 

ENGLAND.  ENGLISH  COLONIES. 


Grafton  Ministry,  1767-1770. 

Act  suspending  New  York  Assem 
bly,  June,  1767. 

Townshend   Acts,  June-July,  1767. 
Act  estab.  Customs  Com. 
Revenue  Act. 
Tea  Act. 


Wilkes'      election     and    expulsion 
from  Parliament,   1768-1769. 


Lord  North's  Ministry,  1770-1782. 
Repeal  of   the  Revenue    Act   (ex 
cept  tea),  1770. 


The  Intolerable  Acts,  1774. 
Boston  Port  Act,  March. 
Mass.  Govt.  Act,  May. 
Adm.  of  Justice  Act,  May. 
Quebec  Act,  May. 
Quartering  Act,  June. 


Dickinson's  "  Farmers'  Letters," 
1767. 

"  Sons  of  Liberty  "  organized,  1767- 
68. 

Massachusetts  Circular  Letter,  Feb 
ruary,  1768. 

Massachusetts  Assembly  dissolved, 
1768. 


Arrival  of  British  troops  in  Boston, 

October,  1768. 

Treaty  of  Ft.  Stanwix,  1768. 
Early    settlements    in     Tennessee, 

1769. 

Virginia  Resolutions,  May,  1/69. 
The  Boston  Massacre,  1770. 


The  "  Regulators  '  "  Insurrection  in 
North  Carolina,  1771. 

Destruction  of  the  "Gaspee,"  1772. 

Local  Committees  of  Correspon 
dence  in  Massachusetts,  1772. 

Watauga  Association  (Tenn.), 
1772. 

Resolutions  of  Virginia. 

Colonial  Committees  of  Corre 
spondence,  1773. 

Resistance  to  the  landing  of  the 
tea,  1773. 

Boston  Tea  Party,  December,  1773. 

Lord  Dunmore's  Indian  War,  1774. 

Massachusetts  Legislature  calls  a 
Continental  Congress,  June  17, 
i?74- 

Continental  Congress  in  Philadel 
phia,  September-October,  1774. 

Massachusetts  Provincial  Congress, 
October,  1774. 


APPENDIX 


249 


ENGLAND. 


ENGLISH  COLONIES. 


Attempted  repeal  of  the  Intolerable 
Acts,  1775. 

Lord  North  Conciliatory  Resolu 
tions,  February,  1775. 

New  England  Restraining  Act, 
March,  1775. 


King's  Proclamation  of   Rebellion, 

August  22,   1775. 


Act  prohibiting  trade  with  Ameri 
ca,  December  22,  1775. 


Battles  of  Lexington  and  Concord, 
April  19,  1775. 

Settlements  in   Kentucky,  1775. 

Second  Continental  Congress  as 
sembles,  May,  1775. 

Washington's  appointment  as  com 
mander  of  army,  June,  1775. 

Battle   of    Bunker    Hill,    June    17, 

1775- 
Declaration  of  causes  for  taking  up 

arms,  July  6,  1775. 
Petition  to  the  King,  July  8,  1775. 
Rejection  of    North's  Conciliatory 

Resolution,  July  31,  1775. 
Siege  of  Boston,  July,  i775~March, 

1776. 

Congress  recommends  New  Hamp 
shire  and  South  Carolina  to  or 
ganize  governments,  November, 

I77S- 

Expedition  against    Quebec,    1775- 
,76. 


INDEX 


ABERCROMBY,  General,  102,  103. 
ACADEMIES,  229. 

ACADIA,  conquered  by  the  English, 
25  >  77  j  82  ;  people  of  dispersed, 

83- 
ACTS,    Molasses    and  Sugar,    112; 

Navigation,     112,    167;      Stamp 

Act,   130,     131  ;  Act    of  Repeal, 

173  ;    Intolerable  Acts,  177-180; 

Boston    Port  Bill,    177;  Quebec 

Act,  177. 
ADAMS,    John,    170,   206,  212,  213, 

231. 
Adams,  Samuel,  153,  154,  163,  169, 

206,  229,  231. 
"ADVENTURE,"  the,  222. 
ADVOCATE  GENERAL,  115. 
ARISTOCRACY,  colonial,    201,    202, 

205 ;  and    ownership    of    slaves, 

203  ;  in  Va.,  220. 
AFFAIRS,  public,  149,  150  ;   right  to 

regulate,  204. 
AGRICULTURE,   in   the  South,  126, 

134,  145,  221  ;in  Penn.,  127,  134  ; 

in  New  England,  136;   regulation 

of,  237. 

ALBANY,  convention  at,  74. 
ALLEGHENIES,  region  west   of,  58, 

103;  chapter  on,  183  et  seq. 
AMHERST,  General,  94,  104. 
AMUSEMENTS,  and    religious  senti 
ment,  239  ;  of  the  New  England 

people,  240,  241,  242. 
ANNAPOLIS    ROYAL,  25,  55. 

251 


ANTAGONISM,  spirit  of,  109,  115; 

see  Revolt,  Revolution. 
ARITHMETIC,  225,  226. 
ARMS,  68. 

ART,  works  of,  42;  imported,  141. 
ASSEMBLY,      representative,      87  ; 

House    of    Burgesses,     98,  146 ; 

willingness  of,  to  levy  tax,  1 16  ; 

town  meeting,    in   Boston,    162 ; 

see  Burgesses,    Congress,    Town 

Meeting. 
ASSERTION  of  rights,  chap,  on,  156 

et  seq.;   British,   to   govern,  165 ; 

Colonial,  154,  204. 
ASSISTANCE,  wrrits  of,  115,  1 16, 123. 
AUTHORITY,  spirit  of  revolt  from, 

6 ;  local,    in    New   England,  86; 

resistance  to  British,  1 14  ;  British, 

in  Boston,  201. 


B 


BALTIMORE,  138. 

"  BLUE  GRASS  COUNTRY,"  192. 

BLUNDER,  BRITISH,  127,  128. 

BOOKS,  text,  226,  228. 

BOONE,  Daniel,  189. 

BOROUGHS,  rotten  and  pocket,  118, 
119. 

BOSTON,  115,  132,  138,  154,  160, 
161  ;  "Massacre,"  162  ;  town 
meeting,  162;  "Tea  Party,"  176, 
177,  207  ;  "  Port  Bill,"  177  ;  sup 
ported  by  the  colonies,  180 ; 
royal  authority  in,  201  ;  curfew 
in,  240. 


252 


INDEX 


BRADDOCK,  character  of,  76,  97  ; 
sent  to  America,  76 ;  marched 
against  Fort  Duquesne,  77-81  ; 
campaign  of,  a  failure,  82. 

BRADSTREET,  General,  96. 

BRICKS,  ii  ;  made  in  America,  14; 
Dutch  and  English  models,  15. 

BRIDGES,  88. 

BRITISH,  foreign  affairs,  94  ; 
blunder,  127,  128;  aggression  of, 
130,  150,  154;  right  to  govern, 
165  ;  see  Parliament,  Trade  laws. 

BROWN  UNIVERSITY,  230. 

BRUCE,  87. 

BURKE,  Edmund,  165  ;  on  colonial 
commerce,  203. 

BURGESSES,  House  of,  98,  99,  100, 
146,  147,  151  ;  resolutions  of,  153; 
appointed  a  "  Committee  of  Cor 
respondence,"  171. 


CARROLL,  206. 

CANADA,  French  in,  103,  104  ;  Que 
bec,  104  ;  surrender  of,  105  ;  gov 
ernment  of,  179. 

CANDLES,  216,  240. 

CAROLINA,  North,  190. 

CAROLINA,  South,  Huguenot  im 
migration,  31  ;  culture  of  indigo 
in,  47-49  ;  against  influx  of  slaves, 
1 10  ;  negro  slaves  in,  219;  stamped 
paper  in,  132  ;  committee  of  cor 
respondence  in,  171 ;  tea  in,  176; 
aided  Boston,  180;  John  Rut- 
ledge,  202  ;  population  of,  219. 

CAROLINAS,  gentry  in,  5 ;  Hugue 
nots  in,  5  ;  Scotch-Irish  left,  6  ; 
brick  houses  in,  14  ;  life  in,  chap, 
on,  39  et  seq.;  nearly  destroyed, 
48  ;  Indian  war,  49  ;  grievances, 
127;  migration  to,  185;  people 
of,  settled  in  the  West,  192;  pro 
prietary  government,  1 99;  under 
royal  control,  200  ;  aristocracy 
and  democracy  in,  202,  220. 

CATHOLICS,  5,  35. 

CAUSE,  common,  180,  205,  206. 


CAVALIERS,  5,  31,  201. 

CHALLENGE,  to  king  and  Parlia 
ment,  157  ;to  governor  and  coun 
cil,  163. 

CHARMS,  belief  in,  233. 

CHAMPLAIN,  Lake,  104. 

CHARLESTON,  42,  44,  136,  176,  210. 

CHARTER,  Mass.,  178. 

CHATHAM,  Earl  of,  94,  165. 

CHURCHES,  236. 

CINCINNATI,  62. 

CITIES,  in  the  South,  136,  streets 
in,  210;  growth  of,  143;  largest, 
life  in,  209. 

CIVIL,  unit  in  the  South,  87,  88. 

CLAIMS,  territorial,  239. 

CLARK,  George  Rogers,  192,  193. 

CLASSES,  in  the  colonies,  10;  negro 
slaves,  white  servants,  1 1 ;  friction 
among,  119,  120;  see  Servants, 
Slavery. 

CLEIIGY,  supported  by  the  people, 

146  ;  salary  paid  in  tobacco,  146  ; 
petition    to    British    government, 

147  ;  act  of   the   House  of   Bur 
gesses,  147  ;  learning  of,  232  ;  re 
ception  of,  by  the  people,  236. 

COACHES,  242. 

COLLEGES,  230. 

COLONIAL,  period,  characteristics 
of,  52  et  seq. ;  first  independent 
war,  chap,  on,  61  et  seq.;  repre 
sentatives  at  Albany,  74  ;  individ 
ually,  chap,  on,  84  et  seq. ;  expe 
ditions,  95  ;  grievances,  chap,  on, 
107  et  seq.;  resistance,  114,  149  ; 
antagonism,  115;  revolt  against 
trade  laws,  116;  opposition  to 
British  policy,  124,  149;  wealth 
and  luxury,  chap,  on,  134  et  seq. ; 
challenge  to  king  and  Parliament, 
157  ;  riots,  162,  169  ;  demand  sent 
to  governor  and  council,  163 ; 
smuggling,  167  ;  affairs  and  the 
Revolution,  195  ;  government, 
proprietary,  royal,  198,  charter, 
199;  aristocracy  and  democracy, 
20 1,  202 ;  water  supply,  210;  popu 
lation,  in  Va.  and  Mass.,  220, 


INDEX 


253 


in  the  middle  colonies,  221  ;  pros 
perity,  chap,  on,  218  et  seq. ; 
products,  221 ;  commerce,  221- 
223,  Burke  on,  223;  education, 
chap,  on,  224  et  seq. ;  lawyers, 
231,  232;  doctors,  232,  234  ;  rec 
ords,  212,  236,  237,  238;  nation- 
building,  243. 

COLONIES,  spirit  of  revolt,  8  ;  organ 
ized  by  the  English,  9  ;  classes  in, 
10 ;  "feeders"  of  English  pros 
perity,  1 6,  20,  181  ;  influences  at 
work  in,  22,  203;  vexed  by  wars, 
22  (see  Wars);  made  war  upon 
the  French,  25  (see  French);  at 
tacked  by  the  Spanish,  25  (see 
Spanish) ;  troubled  by  the  In 
dians,  26  (see  Indians) ;  problems 
of,  chap,  on,  73  et  seq.,  in  ;  not 
united,  74;  jealousy  in,  76,  90; 
Franklin's  plan  of  union  for,  75  ; 
communication  between,  84  (see 
Commerce);  centralization  of,  84, 
85,  205  (see  Union)  ;  institutions 
in,  85 ;  local  self-government,  87 
(see  Government) ;  voted  troops, 
95  (see  Troops)  ;  social  systems 
in,  107  ;  relation  to  England,  109 
(see  England)  ;  public  sentiment 
in,  112;  Puritan,  120,  125,  126; 
wealth  and  luxury,  chap,  on,  134 
et  seq. ;  middle,  134,  145  (see 
New  Jersey,  New  York,  Pennsyl 
vania)  ;  asserted  the  right  to 
govern,  154;  common  cause  of, 
156;  called  a  Congress,  156  (see 
Congress) ;  policy  of,  1 59  ;  united 
resistance  of,  161  (see  Resis 
tance)  ;  troops  sent  to  overawe, 
161  (see  Troops) ;  non-importa 
tion  agreement,  161,  conciliation, 
time  for,  167,  hoped  for,  207 ; 
drifting  toward  revolution,  chap, 
on,  171  et  seq.  (see  Revolution); 
committees  of  correspondence, 
171  ;  aided  Boston,  180  (see  Bos 
ton)  ;  service  of  "  Scotch-Irish  " 
to,  1 86  (see  "Scotch-Irish"); 
declared  "in  rebellion,"  194;  pro 


prietary,  royal,  198  ;  charter,  199  ; 
remoteness  of,  203  ;  unification  of, 
205  ;  health  conditions  in,  chap, 
on,  209  et  seq.;  smallpox  in,  211, 
212;  prosperity  of,  chap,  on,  218 
et  seq. ;  negro  slavery  in,  n,  109, 
no,  in,  203,  218,  219  (see  Slav 
ery);  population,  II,  22,  125,  136, 
138,  220;  education  in,  chap,  on, 
224  et  seq.  (see  Education) ;  ex 
cesses  in,  241,  242;  vehicles  in, 
242. 

COLONISTS,  dependent  upon  Eng 
land,  1,2;  enjoyed  fruits  of  Eng 
lish  manufactures,  2  ;  organized 
trade,  3  ;  in  New  England,  4,  85- 
87  (see  New  England)  ;  in  Mary 
land,  4,  5 ;  spirit  of  protest,  5, 
131  ;  spirit  of  revolt,  6  (see  Re 
volt,  Revolution)  ;  fundamental 
idea,  6 ;  \vork  of  xvii.  century, 
8,  9;  manufactures  of,  17-20 
(see  Trade  Laws)  ;  afflicted  by 
wars,  22  (  see  Wars) ;  at  close  of 
King  William's  War,  24;  prob 
lems  of,  59,  chapter  on,  73  et  seq., 
ill;  in  the  Carolinas,  39  (see 
Carolina,  Carolinas ) ;  based  claims 
on  the  Cabot  discoveries,  63 ; 
Englishmen  in  America,  73,  74, 
122,  123,  125  ;  Englishmen  in  Eng 
land,  1 08  ;  Albany  Convention, 
74 ;  rejected  plan  of  union,  76,  90 
(see  Franklin) ;  united  under 
Braddock,  77  (see  Braddock) ; 
Braddock's  defeat  a  lesson,  82 ; 
life  of,  in  the  middle  of  the  xviii. 
century,  84  (see  Life)  ;  in  the 
South,  87-90  (see  South) ;  social 
and  political  differences  of,  84-90 ; 
jealousy  among,  90  ;  secured  the 
Ohio  valley,  103  ;  Navigation  Act, 
112;  Sugar  and  Molasses  Act, 
ii2  ;  evasions  of,  113,  114  ;  accept 
Otis's  dictum,  116  (see  Otis);  in 
difference  of  Eng.  to,  125  ;  troops, 
quartered  upon,  127,  to  overawe, 
128;  real  objection  of,  to  the 
"  Stamp  Act,"  130,  131 ;  defended 


254 


INDEX 


by  Henry,  148  (see  Henry) ;  re 
sisted  imposts,  160;  "  the  Boston 
Massacre,"  162  ;  asserted  right  to 
govern,  165;  resistance  of,  169, 
J73>  J74  (see  Resistance) ;  inde 
pendence  repulsive  to,  170,  real 
ized,  182  (see  Independence),  tax 
on  tea,  173,  174;  willingness  to 
levy  tax,  174;  non-importation 
policy,  181 ;  resources  of,  181,  182  ; 
migrated,  183  (see  Migration)  ; 
and  the  "  Penn.  Dutch,"  185,  186 
(see  Penn.);  became  Americans, 
193  ;  declared  "  in  rebellion,"  194  ; 
at  Jamestown,  196,  197  ;  at  Plym 
outh,  198;  Mass.  Bay,  198; 
self-government  of,  199  (see  Gov 
ernment)  ;  unification  of,  205 ; 
religious  devotion  of,  236  (see 
Religion) ;  amusements  of,  239, 
241. 

COLONY,  planting,  xvii.  century,  8, 
Carolina,  48,  122;  at  Jamestown 
194,  196;  Plymouth,  198;  Mass, 
Bay,  198. 

COLUMBIA  COLLEGE,  230. 

COMMERCE,  in  New  England,  112, 
126,  136,  221,  222,  blow  to,  112; 
"Boston  Port  Bill,"  177;  growth 
of  cities,  138. 

COMMONS,  House  of,  117;  see  Par 
liament. 

COMMUNICATION,  between  the  col 
onies,  84  ;  Canada  and  the  Mis 
sissippi  valley,  103. 

CONCILIATION,  time  for,  167  ; 
hoped  for,  207. 

CONGRESS,  representative  assembly, 
J  29  ;  called  by  the  colonies,  1 56  ; 
challenge  to  king  and  Parlia 
ment,  157;  held  in  Phila.,  180  ; 
non-importation  policy,  181. 

CONFLICT,  inevitable,  '20;  "irre 
pressible,"  163. 

CONNECTICUT,  immigrants  to,  6, 
171,  179;  under  charter  govern 
ment,  200;  democracy  in,  201; 
Yale,  founded  in,  230. 

CONSERVATISM.  108. 


"  CONTINENTALS,"  68. 

CONSTITUTION,  and  Franklin's  plan 
of  union,  75,  76. 

CO-OPERATION,  sought  for,  93. 

CORN,  221,  237. 

CORRESPONDENCE,  committees  of, 
171. 

CROWN  POINT,  77,81,95,  102, 104. 

COURTS,  county,  functions  of,  88; 
issued  writs,  123,  and  stamped  pa 
per,  133  ;  "  Parson's  Cause,"  149  ; 
aristocratic,  205. 

COTTON,  45. 

COUNTY,  unit,  88  ;  court,  88. 

CURFEW,  240. 

CURRENCY,  tobacco,  146;  actual, 
146. 

CUSTOMS,  commissioner  of,  114; 
officers  resisted,  123;  Boston, 
160,  161. 


D 


DARMOUTH  COLLEGE,  230. 

DEATH  RATE,  210,  211. 

DECLARATION,  of  Independence, 
154  ;  accepted  by  tlietories,  207  ; 
of  political  independence,  182. 

DECLARATION  of  Rights  and  Griev 
ances,  157. 

DELAWARE,  200. 

DEMOCRACY,  colonial,  201  ;  versus 
aristocracy,  201,  202;  in  Geor 
gia,  203. 

DIESKAU,  Baron,  Si. 

DINWIDDIE,  governor,  64,  66,  76. 

DISCONTENT,  in  the  colonies,  5, 
109. 

DOLLS,  fashion  models,  142. 

DRAINAGE,  210. 

DRESS,  141-143. 

DRUGS,  233,  234. 

DUQUESNE,  63. 

DUQUESNE,  Fort,  69,  77,  95-98. 
103. 

DUTCH,  Penn.,  29,  185  ;  in  N.  Y., 
108,  209. 

DUTIES,  167;  see  Trade  Laws. 


INDEX 


255 


EDUCATION,  in  the  South,  88,  229, 
231  ;  in  the  colonies,  chap,  on, 
2&4  et  seq.;  spelling,  224,  225 ; 
capitalization,  225  ;  arithmetic, 
225,  226;  multiplication,  geogra 
phy  and  history,  reading,  226  ; 
teaching  of  English,  227,  228 ; 
schools  in  New  England,  226,  229  ; 
text  books,  226  ;  primary  and  sec 
ondary,  229  ;  "  old  field  schools," 
229 ;  higher,  230. 

EDWARDS,  Jonathan,  232. 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  opening 
of,  9  ;  medical  science  in,  232  ;  use 
of  wheeled  vehicles,  242. 

ELOQUENCE,  of  Samuel  Adams,  163 
(see  Henry). 

EMANCIPATION,  early  problem  of, 
in. 

ENGLAND,  encouraged  production 
of  iron,  17;  war  with  Spain,  52; 
with  France,  54  ;  attitude  of,  to 
ward  America,  58,  92,  109,  113, 
125,  181  ;  appeal  of  Dinwiddie  to, 
76 ;  payment  of  Franklin's  bill, 
78,  79 ;  encouraged  the  slave 
trade,  1 10  (see  Slavery) ;  govern 
ment  in,  117  ;  dominated  by  the 
tories,  165. 

ENGLISH  SETTLEMENTS,  24  ;  armies 
in,  93;  growth  of,  107. 


FEDERAL  IDEA,  90. 

FEE  SIMPLE,  36. 

FISHERIES,  134,  136. 

FLORIDA,  25,  49,  54. 

FORBES,  General,  96,  97,  98. 

Fox,  165. 

FRANKLIN,  Benjamin,  in  the  Al 
bany  Convention,  74 ;  plan  of 
union,  75,  76,  84,  90 ;  call  of,  to 
the  farmers,  78 ;  favored  royal 
government,  200  ;  urged  compro 
mise,  207  ;  favored  the  building 
of  good  streets,  209;  journey  with 


John  Adams,  212,  213;  invented 
a  stove,  214,  215. 

FRENCH,  24-26;  at  war  with  the 
English,  54-57  ;  French  and  In 
dian  War,  63-71,  107,  183; 
claimed  the  Allegheny  region, 
66  ;  forces,  67  ;  drove  back  Trent, 
69;  defeated  Washington,  71; 
expeditions  against,  77 ;  power 
destroyed,  chap,  on  92  et.  seq., 
96,  103 ;  surrendered  Quebec, 
105;  West  India  Islands,  112; 
power  broken,  127. 

FRONTENAC,  Fort,  96,  103. 

FRY,  Colonel,  71. 

FUNERALS,  241,  242. 


GASPEE,  167,  168. 

GEORGIA,  colony  of,  chapter  on,  32 
et  seq.;  country  conquered  by 
Colonel  Moore,  25 ;  proprietary 
government  under  Oglethorpe, 
34  et  seq.;  life  in,  chapter  on,  39 
et  seq. ;  character  of  settlers,  42- 
44  ;  invaded  by  the  Spaniards,  54  ; 
aided  Boston,  180  ;  sympathy  of, 
with  Congress,  1 80  ;  under  royal 
government,  200 ;  democracy  in, 
203  ;  no  slavery  in,  203. 

GEORGE,  Lake,  94,  104. 

GEORGE  II.,  land  grant  to  Ogle 
thorpe,  33,  34. 

GEORGE  III.,  character  of,  113,  114, 
1 66,  167  ;  enforced  the  trade 
laws,  167. 

GEOGRAPHY  and  history,  226. 

GERMANS,  came  to  America  for  re 
ligious  and  political  reasons,  28  ; 
influence  of,  28  ;  immigrated  to 
N.  York,  then  to  Pennsylvania, 
28  ;  in  Georgia,  35  ;  in  Perm.,  28, 
108;  migrated  southward,  184, 
called  "  Penn.  Dutch,"  185. 

GIRLS,  education  of,  227. 

GIST,  Christopher,  62,  66,  67. 

GLOUCESTER,  138. 

GOVERNMENT,  in    Georgia,   under 


256 


INDEX 


Oglethorpe,  36 ;  in  the  Carolinas, 
50,  199 ;  general,  in  Franklin's 
plan,  75  ;  liberty  and  functions  of, 
86,  87  ;  ideal  of  free,  87  ;  town,  87  ; 
plantation,  88;  country,  88  ;  gen 
eral,  attitude  toward,  90,  91  ;  new 
systems  of,  107;  in  Eng.,  117, 
120;  proprietary,  198,  200;  royal, 
198,  200 ;  charter,  199, 200 ;  of  Va., 
199;  of  Mass.,  200,  201  ;  popular, 
in  Mass.,  201  ;  free  right  of,  206  ; 
in  New  Eng.,  236-239  ;  officers  of, 
238. 

GOVERNOR,  royal  and  council,  163, 
165,  198,  199;  in  Mass.,  200. 

GRANT,  of  land,  in  Va.,  10;  by 
George  II.  to  Oglethorpe,  33,  34  ; 
by  Virginia, to  the  Ohio  Company, 
61  ;  to  Mass.,  N.  Y.,  and  Va.,  179. 

GRENVILLE,  113,  130. 

GRIEVANCES,  colonial,  chap,  on,  107 
et  seq. 


II 


HARVARD  COLLEGE,  230. 

HEALTH,  conditions  of,  in  the  colo 
nies,  chap,  on,  209  et  seq. 

HEATING,  236  (see  Stoves).  . 

HENRY,  Patrick,  chap,  on,  145  et 
seq.;  "Parsons'  Cause,"  148;  in 
fluence  of,  150,  169  ;  in  House  of 
Burgesses,  150,  resolutions  of, 
151;  "the  voice  of  the  Revolu 
tion,"  202  ;  spirit  of,  169,  206 ;  the 
English  of,  229 ;  an  American 
lawyer,  231. 

HISTORY  AND  GEOGRAPHY,  226. 

HOPKINS,  Stephen,  169. 

HOSTILITY,  between  the  colonies 
and  England,  21;  between  the 
French  and  English  colonies,  26 
(see  Revolt,  Revolution). 

HOUSE  OF  BURGESSES,  (see  Bur 
gesses). 

HOUSES,  n,  15  (see  Life). 

HOWE,  Lord.  102. 

HUGUENOTS,  5,  31. 

HUTCHINSON,  Anne,  6. 


[DEA,  federal,  90;  dominant,  119, 
interchange  of,  205  (see  Resis 
tance,  Revolt,  Revolution). 

[IMMIGRATION,  in  Virginia,  9,  10, 
general  influence  of,  10;  during 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  27  ;  German,  28  ;  of  Scotch- 
Irish,  29,  30 ;  of  Huguenots,  or 
French  Protestants,  30 ;  slave, 
no;  into  Jamestown,  196,  197.  . 

IMPOSTS,  1 12,  160  ;  resisted,  160  (see 
Stamp  Act). 

INDEPENDENCE,  idea  of,  59,  91,  125, 
155,  169,  170,  182;  local,  21,75, 
90  ;  in  early  times,  85  ;  of  the  plan 
tations,  87,  134;  industrial,  151 ; 
political,  182;  declared,  175;  in 
Ohio  country,  187,  188;  of  Wa- 
tauga,  190  ;  conditions  that  led  to, 
I94et  seq. ;  in  the  charter  colonies, 
200 ;  Second  War  of  Indepen 
dence,  195. 

INDIANA,  61. 

INDIANS,  currency  used  among,  18; 
King  William's  War,  24  ;  incur 
sions  of,  encouraged  by  the 
French,  26  ;  liked  Oglethorpe,  35  ; 
Westoes,  48  ;  Tuscaroras,  48,  49  ; 
Iroquois,48,  49,  73,  74  ;  Yemassee, 
48,  49 ;  sold  into  slavery,  49 ; 
Great  French  and  Indian  War, 
62,71,  107,  183;  joined  French, 
in  expedition  into  the  Ohio  Val 
ley,  62  ;  encountered  by  Washing 
ton,  64  ;  warfare  of,  understood 
by  Washington,  79,  80  ;  French 
and  Indians  under  Montcalm,94; 
lost  confidence  in  the  French,  104; 
colonists  competent  to  meet,  128  ; 
made  war  on  Kentucky  settlers, 
191  ;  defeated  at  Point  Pleasant, 
192;  attacked  state  in  Transyl 
vania,  192  ;  contribution  to  New 
England  agriculture,  237  (see  Col 
onists,  French,  Wars). 

INDIGO,  culture  of,  46,  47,  48,  219; 
fully  introduced,  47,  221. 


INDEX 


257 


INFLUENCES,  affecting  the  colonies, 

22. 

INDIVIDUALITY,  colonial,  chap,  on, 
84  et  seq. ;  versus  govt.,  87  ;  strong 
feeling  of,  90. 

INJUSTICE,  of  the  Stamp  Act,  130; 
of  the  Navigation  Act,  167  ;  grew 
intolerable,  see  Trade  Laws  170 ; 
caused  the  Revolution,  194. 

INOCULATION,  211. 

INSTITUTIONS,  New  England  Town 
Meeting,  8;  Virginia  County 
Court,  88;  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  9  ;  development  of,  85. 

INTERFERENCE,  of  British  govern 
ment,  147,  221  ;  speech  of  Henry 
on,  148. 

"  INTOLERABLE  ACTS,"  177-180. 

IROQUOIS,  48,  49,  73,  74  ;  see  In 
dians. 


JAMESTOWN,  194,  196,  242. 

JEALOUSY,  91. 

JEFFERSON,  Thomas,  87,  151,  152, 

170,  206,  229,  231. 
JENNER,  211. 
JEWS,  in  Georgia,  35. 
JOHNSON,  Fort,  132. 
JOHNSON,  Sir  William,  81. 


K 


KENTON,  Simon,  189. 

KENTUCKY,  61,  188  ;  attacked  by 
the  Indians,  191 ;  defended  by 
Clark,  192;  organized,  193. 

KING'S  COLLEGE,  (Columbia),  230. 

KING  GEORGE'S  WAR,  54  et  seq. 

KING  WILLIAM'S  WAR,  24. 


LABOR,  unskilled,  219. 

LA  SALLE,  63. 

LATIN,  study  of,  227,  229. 

LAW,  slave  trade,  218;  Virginian 
219  ;  study  of,  231,  232,  attracted 
the  best  men,  231  ;  regulated 


"  lectures,"  240  ;  feasting  and  ex 
cesses,  241,  242. 

LAWS,  see  Trade  Laws. 

LE  BCEUF,  Fort,  66. 

"  LECTURES,"  240. 

LIBERTY,  spirit  of,  in  the  colonies, 
6  ;  influence  of  English  laws  upon 
spirit  of,  19;  revolt  in  name  of, 
during  eighteenth  century,  8  ;  pop 
ular,  86,  87  ;  fear  of  encroach 
ment  upon,  90 ;  newT  ideas  of, 
107;  English,  107,  116;  endan 
gered,  115;  English,  116;  de 
stroyed  in  Mass.,  178  ;  guaranteed 
in  the  charter  colonies,  200  ;  Hen 
ry  pleaded  for,  202  ;  tories  fought 
in  the  behalf  of,  207. 

LIFE,  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
chapter  on,  i  et  seq. ;  among  the 
well-to-do,  2,  3  ;  in  New  England, 
85,  87,  regulation  of,  109,  238; 
amusements,  239,  246 ;  in  Mary 
land  and  the  Carolinas,  4,  5  ;  in 
Pennsylvania,  5,  185,  186  ;  houses 
of  the  early  colonists,  10;  use  of 
brick  in  building,  1 1  ;  influence 
of  immigration,  27  ;  in  Georgia 
and  the  Carolinas,  chapter  on,  39 
et  seq. ;  in  middle  of  eighteenth 
century,  84 ;  development  of  in 
stitutions,  85  ;  in  the  South,  87- 
90,  136  ;  school,  in  the  South,  88- 
90;  conditions  of ,  108;  homes  de 
fended  as  a  "  castle,"  123 ;  colonial 
wealth  and  luxury,  chap,  on,  134 
et  seq.  ;  in  the  plantation  house 
136,  138;  dress,  141-143  ;  of  com 
mon  people,  143  ;  among  the 
"Penn.  Dutch,"  185,  186;  "Scotch- 
Irish,"  1 86;  in  the  Ohio  country, 
187,  1 88;  among  the  Pioneers, 
189,  193;  in  Transylvania,  193; 
in  early  colony  at  Jamestown, 
196  ;  Mass,  and  N.  Y.,  201 ;  people 
brought  together,  205 ;  health 
conditions  and  peculiarities  of, 
chap,  on,  209  et  seq.  ;  in  the 
largest  cities,  209 ;  in  southern 
cities,  210. 


258 


INDEX 


LIGHTING,  facilities  for,  216. 

LOCAL,  authority  in  New  England, 
86,  87  ;.see  Government. 

LONGFELLOW,  "  Evangeline,"  82. 

"  LONG  KNIVES,"  189. 

LOUISBURG,  55,  104;  fall  of,  and 
return  to  France,  57  ;  menace  to 
New  England,  57,  58  ;  attack 
uP°n>  93.  96- 

LOUDOUN,  Earl  of,  92-94. 

LOYALTY,  to  England,  59,  60,  107, 
125,  126,  157,  170. 

LUCAS,  Eliza,  introduced  indigo, 
45-47- 

LUXURY,  colonial,  chap,  on,  134  et 
seq. ;  in  dress,  141,  143  ;  in  house 
hold  furnishings,  143. 


M 


MAGNA  CHARTA,  124. 

MANUFACTURES,  colonists  bought 
English,  i,  2;  colonial,  138,  140; 
prior  to  the  Revolution,  181 ;  see 
Trade  Laws. 

MARSHALL,  John,  230,  231. 

MARYLAND,  gentry  in,  Catholi 
cism,  5  ;  migration  into,  185;  un 
der  proprietary  govt.,  200. 

MASSACRE,  in  Boston,  162. 

MASSACHUSETTS,  122, 138,  171,179; 
lack  of  toleration  in,  6;  manu 
facturing  in,  138;  stamp  tax  in, 
154  ;  protest  of,  161  ;  with  Vir 
ginia,  acted  as  a  leader,  171; 
"Massachusetts  Bill,"  178,  179; 
legislature,  call  of,  180 ;  charter, 
200;  govt.  in,  20 1  ;  democracy 
in,  201  ;  Franklin's  advice  to,  207; 
population  of,  220;  schools  in, 
229;  funerals  in,  241,  242;  see 
Boston. 

MASON,  George,  231. 

MEDICINE,  study  of,  232,  233. 

MIDDLE  colonies,  134,  145;  popu 
lation  of,  221  ;  agriculture  in,  221  ; 
academies  in,  229  ;  see  Maryland, 
N.  J.,  N.  Y.,  Penn. 

MIGRATION,  of  the  "  Penn.  Dutch," 


184-186;  of  the  "Scotch-Irish," 
1 86;  toward  the  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  region,  188-193. 

MILITARY,  colony,  in  Georgia,  37  ; 
forces,  compared  with  those  of 
the  French,  67  ;  no  funds  for,  78  ; 
English,  93  ;  rule,  93,  95,  103, 162, 
178. 

MISSISSIPPI  River,  63  ;  region,  chap, 
on,  183  et  seq. 

MOB,  Boston,  162;  Providence, 
169. 

MOLASSES  and  Sugar  Act,  112. 

MONEY,  tobacco  used  as,  146;  ac 
tual,  146. 

MONTCALM,  Marquis  de,  92,  93, 
victory  of,  94 ;  protected  Quebec; 
105  ;  surrendered  to  Wolfe,  105. 

MOORE,  Colonel,  25. 

MOUNTAINS,  beyond  the,  chap,  on, 
183  et  seq. 

MULTIPLICATION,  teaching  of,  226. 

MURRAY,  Lindley,  227. 


N 


NAVIGATION  ACT,  112,  167. 

NATIONALITY,  independent,  141. 

NECESSITY,  Fort,  71. 

NEGRO,  soldiers,  49  ;    see  Slavery. 

NEW  ENGLAND,  conditions  in,  4, 
1 08  ;  Town  Meeting,  8,  162,  205  ; 
clergymen  formed  class  in,  10 ; 
French  a  menace,  55  ;  plan  to  de 
stroy  privateers,  56  ;  Louisburg  a 
center  of  depredation,  57  ;  life  in, 
85-87  ;  government  in,  87,  236- 
239  ;  contrasts  to,  in  the  South, 
87  et  seq.  ;  Navigation  Act,  112, 
167;  commerce  and  prosperity 
of,  112,  126,  127,  134,  168,  221- 
223;  agriculture  in,  136,  237;  in 
terests  of,  145 ;  population  of, 
220 ;  schools  in,  226,  229 ;  educated 
men  in,  231,  232;  churches  in, 
236;  religious  sentiment,  239. 

NEW  HAMPSHIRE,  171  ;  under  royal 
govt.,  200  ;  Dartmouth  College, 
230. 


INDEX 


259 


NEW  JERSEY,  134;  under  royal 
govt.,  200 ;  democracy  in,  201  ; 
Rutgers  College,  230. 

NEW  YORK,  122,  126,  138,  179; 
Germans  in,  6,  28;  patroons 
in,  10,  201;  character  of  early 
houses,  10 ;  convention  at  Albany, 
74  ;  stripped  by  the  British,  93 ; 
Dutch  in,  108;  mob  in,  132;  col 
onial  Congress  in,  1 56  ;  refused 
to  land  tea,  175;  street  cleaning 
in,  209;  King's  College  (Colum 
bia),  230. 

NIAGARA,  77,  81. 

NON-IMPORTATION,  policy  of,  161, 
181. 

NORTH,  Lord,  165,166. 

NOVA  SCOTIA,  25,  55. 


O 


OGLETHORPE,  General  James, 
planted  the  Georgia  colony,  32  ; 
character  of,  32,  33,  35  ;  as  a  pro 
prietor,  34  ;  in  Florida,  53,  203. 

OHIO,  Company,  61  ;  country,  98  ; 
secured  by  the  Eng.,  103,  "Scotch- 
Irish  "  in,  187. 

OPINION,  public,  153,  154. 

OPPRESSION,  115,  122;  resistance 
to,  156,  180  ;  protest  against,  161  ; 
crystallized  into  war,  200. 

OTIS,  James,  113,  115,  116,  153, 
154,  170,  206,  229,  231  ;  argued 
against  writs  of  assistance,  116. 

OWNERSHIP,  private,  10;  of  plan 
tations,  134,  202;  land,  202,  219; 
of  slaves,  203. 


PAPER,  stamped,  132;  see  Stamp 
ACT. 

PALATINATE,  people  from,  28. 

PARLIAMENT,  British,  116,  117, 167; 
representation  in,  118-120;  as 
sumed  to  rule  Englishmen  in 
America,  122;  right  of,  to  gov 
ern  colonies,  123,  159,  161,  173; 

Q 


tax  of,  for  support  of  troops,  127; 
troops  to  enforce  the  laws  of,  128 ; 
Stamp  Act,  128,  opposition  of, 
to,  131 ;  challenge  of  colonies  to, 
157;  right  of  tax,  161,  173;  and 
Geo.  III.,  166  ;  declared  colonies 
"in  rebellion,  "  194;  see  British, 
Trade  Laws. 

"  PARSONS'  CAUSE,"  148,  149. 

PATRIOTISM,  growth  of,  168,  175, 
203  ;  see  Henry. 

PATROONS,  in  N.  Y.,  10;  system 
of,  20 1. 

PEACE,  at  the  close  of  King  Wil 
liam's  War,  24;  made  in  1713, 
26 ;  between  France  and  Eng 
land,  57,  105  ;  at  the  close  of  the 
Revolution,  194,  195. 

PENS,  228. 

PENNSYLVANIA,  122,  126,  127,134; 
Quakers  in,  5 ;  Germans  from 
N.  Y.,  immigrate  to,  6,  28,  184; 
Dutch,  29  ;  "  Penn.  Dutch,"  185  ; 
"  Scotch-Irish  "  in,  30  ;  call  upon 
farmers  of,  78  ;  influence  of  im 
migrants,  1 08;  interest  of,  145; 
protection  of,  179;  under  propri 
etary  government,  200 ;  democ 
racy  in,  200;  University  of,  230. 

PEOPLE,  English,  representation 
of,  117-120;  rights  guaranteed  to, 
134  ;  supported  troops  in  Ameri 
ca,  133. 

PEPPERELL,  57. 

PHILADELPHIA,  Congress  in,  180; 
streets  in,  209 ;  College  of  (now 
Univ.  of  Penn.),  230. 

PlCKNEY,   206. 

PICKNEY,  ELIZA,  45-47. 

PIONEERS,  188-193. 

PIRACY,  55,  56. 

PITT,  Fort,  98. 

PITT,  William,  94,  95,  102,  104, 
113,  160. 

PITTSBURG,  68,96,  98. 

PLANTATION  BOOK,  3. 

PLANTATIONS,  in  the  Carolinas,  40, 
42  ;  life  on,  87  ;  units  of  govern 
ment,  87  ;  in  the  South,  134  ;  so- 


260 


INDEX 


cial  centers,  136;  owned  by  Cava 
liers,  202 ;  white  bondsmen  on, 
218;  see  Life,  Slavery,  South. 

PLANTERS,  136;  education  of,  230. 

PLYMOUTH,  198. 

"  POCKET  BOROUGHS,"  118,  119. 

POINT  PLEASANT,  192. 

POLICY,  British,  provoked  resis 
tance,  1 24  ;  united  the  interests 
of  the  colonies,  127,  130,  157; 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  131 ;  see 
Trade  Laws,  159. 

POLITICAL,  recognition,  220. 

POPULATION,  125,  220;  in  the 
South,  136;  in  the  North,  138; 
negro  and  white,  219. 

PORT  ROYAL,  25,  55. 

POTATO,  Irish,  29,  30. 

POWER,  political,  in  Eng.,  119;  Br. 
threatened,  166. 

PRESTON,  Mrs.  Margaret  J.,  186. 

PRINCIPLE,  of  local  self-govern 
ment,  8,  204;  assertion  of,  173; 
dominating,  204  ;  Tory,  207,  208. 

PRIVATEERS,  55,  56. 

PRODUCTS,   44,   45,    187,  219,  221, 

237- 
PROPERTY,    in     Georgia,    36,  37  ; 

qualification,    for    suffrage,    120, 

220. 
PROPRIETARY,  government,    under 

Oglethorpe,    34    et    seq.;  in  the 

Carolinas,  50,  199 ;  general  form 

of,  198;    in  Va.,    199;  in   Penn., 

200. 
PROSPERITY,  of  the  Carolinas,  45  ; 

of  the  colonies,   chap,  on,   218  et 

seq. ;  224. 

PROTESTS,  of  Mass,  and  Va.,  161. 
PROVIDENCE,  169,  230. 


QUAKERS,  31,  108. 

QUEBEC,    55;    Wolfe's  expedition 

against,  104,  105  ;  fall  of,  105. 
"  QUEBEC  ACT,'"  179. 
QUEEN  ANNE,  25. 


RAVENEL,  Mrs.,  46. 

READING,  226. 

REBELLION,  50,  162,  169,  194. 

REFRIGERATION,  235. 

REGULARS,  British,  defeated,  80, 
8 1  ;  compared  with  American 
troops,  95  ;  quartered  on  the  col 
onies,  127  ;  no  need  of,  128  ;  sup 
ported,  by  English  taxpayers,  133. 

RELIGION,  Christianity,  belief  in, 
a  qualification  for  suffrage,  1 20 ; 
teaching  of  asceticism,  142  ;  Eng 
lish  church,  in  Virginia,  146 ; 
churches,  in  New  England,  236, 
238  ;  sentiment  and  public  amuse 
ments,  239. 

REPEAL,  Act  of,  173. 

REPRESENTATION,  116;  and  taxa 
tion  of  the  colonies  in  Parliament, 
116;  of  the  English  people,  117, 
118 ;  class,  120. 

RESISTANCE,  to  British  aggression, 
130;  determined  upon,  132;  in 
N.  Y.  and  Boston,  132  ;  defeated 
British  government,  1 33  ;  growth 
of  spirit  of,  145,  154;  to  British 
oppression,  156,  161  ;  first  active, 
162  ;  colonists  driven  to,  169  ;  to 
tea  tax,  173-175,  177  ;  to  oppres 
sion,  1 80;  extreme  measure  of, 
180,  181. 

RESOURCES,  181,  182. 

REVENUE,  attempt  to  collect,  123; 
from  Stamp  Act,  128;  officers, 
132. 

REVOLT,  from  authority,  6 ;  spirit  of 
8,  58-60 ;  against  English  trade 
laws,  19;  idea  of,  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  21,  122, 
124;  beginning  of  chap,  on,  125 
et  seq.;  stamp  tax,  128,  129; 
new  occasion  for,  132;  Ameri 
cans  on  verge  of,  166 ;  Henry 
fired  spirit  of,  202. 

REVOLUTION,  American,  61  ;  jeal 
ousy  of  colonists,  during,  90  ;  war 
cry  of,  1 1 6,  117  ;  Stamp  Act,  127 


INDEX 


261 


et  seq. ;  condition  of  life,  prior 
to,  134  et  seq. ;  tocsin  of,  in  Vir 
ginia,  149  ;  influence  of  Henry, 
150,  202  ;  "irrepressible  conflict," 
165  ;  drifting  toward,  chapter  on, 
171  et  seq.  ;  seizure  of  tea,  176  ; 
migration  westward,  before,  183; 
Geo.  Rogers  Clark,  192  ;  West, 
settled  before,  195  ;  preparations 
for,  183  et  seq.  ;  the  approach 
of,  chapter  on,  194  et  seq. ;  no 
formal  declaration  of  war,  1 94  ; 
colonies  declared  "  in  rebellion," 
194;  a  phase  of  colonial  govern 
ment,  195  ;  armed  conflict,  reason 
for,  201  ;  contribution  of  aristoc 
racy  to,  202,  203 ;  "  storm  and 
stress  "  period  of,  203  ;  colonists 
at  the  outbreak  of,  205  ;  right  to 
govern  asserted,  206  ;  tories  in, 
206 ;  New  England  commerce, 
before,  221  ;  influence  of  scholarly 
men  in,  230. 

RHODE  ISLAND,  6  ;  171  ;  under 
charter  government,  200  ;  democ 
racy  in,  201. 

RICE,  planted  in  Charleston,  44  ;  in 
S.  Car.,  219,  221. 

RIGHTS,  colonists  insist  upon,  131  ; 
violation  of,  132  ;  assertion  of, 
chapter  on,  156  et  seq.,  174,  204  ; 
trial  by  jury,  157,  169;  constant 
struggle  for,  231. 

ROADS,  maintenance,  88  ;  dirt,  209  ; 
opening  of,  242. 

ROBERTSON,  James,  189,  190. 

"  ROTTEN  BOROUGHS,"  118. 

ROYAL,  colony,  Georgia,  37  ;  S. 
Carolina,  50;  in  N.  Carolina,  51. 

RUTGERS  COLLEGE,  230. 

RUTLEDGE,  John,   2O2,  203-206. 


SABBATARIANISM,  216,  217. 
SAILORS,  222,  223. 
SALEM,  138,  177. 
SANITATION,  lack  of,  209  et  seq. 
SAVANNAH,  colonized,  35,  133. 
SAWMILLS,  15,  138. 


SCHOOLS,  colonial.  88,  90;  in  New 
England,  226 ;  "  old  field  schools," 
229. 

"  SCOTCH-IRISH,"  29  ;  settled  in  the 
wilderness,  6  ;  in  Penn.,  30,  108; 
character  of,  as  immigrants,  30; 
West  India  islands,  112;  power 
not  dangerous,  1 28 ;  migrated 
southward,  186 ;  service  of,  to 
America,  186;  in  the  Ohio  coun 
try  187. 

SELF-GOVERNMENT,  126;  local,  prin 
ciple  of,  8  ;  differences  of,  204 ; 
assertion  of  right  of,  157;  inter 
fered  with,  199  ;  rights  of,  in  char 
ter  colonies,  199,  200. 

SENTIMENT,  public,  112;  Henry,  a 
leader  of,  153  ;  reflection  of,  154. 

SEPARATION,  158-175. 

SERVANTS,  white,  n,  36,  218,  219; 
see  Negro. 

SETTLERS,  at  Jamestown,  194,  196; 
at  Plymouth,  198;  in  Mass.  Bay 
Colony,  198;  see  Pioneers. 

SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY,  8. 

SEVIER,  John,  189,  190. 

SHIPPING,  112,  167,  168,  221. 

SHIRLEY,  Governor,  55,  56,  77,  82. 

SHELBY,  Isaac,  189. 

SLAVERY,  Indian,  49. 

SLAVERY,  Negro,  109,  HI,  203, 
218 ;  law  against,  in  Georgia,  37  ; 
British  interference,  HI;  in  Va. 
and  S.  Car.,  219. 

SMALLPOX,  211,  212,  234. 

SMUGGLING,  colonial,  167,  168. 

SMITH,  Thomas,  44. 

SPAIN,  at  war  with  England,  52. 

SPANISH,  assailed  the  Americans, 
25  ;  claimed  Georgia  territory,  32  ; 
Georgia  warded  off,  32  ;  brought 
about  an  Indian  war,  49  ;  invaded 
Georgia,  54. 

SOCIAL,  systems,  108 ;  life  in  the 
South,  136;  intercourse  in  New 
England,  and  "lectures,"  240. 

SOVEREIGNTY,  8,  190. 

SOUTH,  life  in,  87-90 ;  units  of  gov 
ernment,  87,  88;  schools  in,  88, 


262 


INDEX 


229;  conservatism  in,  108  ;  agri 
culture  in,  126,  134, 145,  221  ;  plan 
tations  in,  134;  cities  in,  136;  con 
ditions  of  streets  in,  210;  migration 
of  "  Scotch-Irish,"  into,  86 ;  owner 
ship  of  slaves  in,  203  ;  climate  of, 
214  ;  white  bondmen  in,  218,  219; 
political  recognition  in,  220 ; 
planters  in,  230,  231  ;  education 
in,  231. 

SPELLING,  224,  225. 

STAMP- ACT,  128,  131,  154;  drew 
colonies  together,  156;  repeal, 

159- 

STAPLES,  221. 

STATE,  first  independent,  190. 
STATESMANSHIP,  English,  195,  196. 
STOVES,  213,  214,  215,  235. 
STREETS,  209,  210. 
STUPIDITY,  British,  96  ;  caused  the 

Revolution,  194. 
SUBJECTION,  117,  160. 
SUFFRAGE,  in  Puritan  colonies,  120 ; 

in  Va.,  219  ;  manhood,  220. 
SUGAR  AND  MOLASSES  ACT,  112. 
SURGERY,  233,  234. 


TAXATION,  75,  91 ;  of  slaves,  no  ; 
without  representation,  116  ;  Eng 
lish  idea  of,  116;  for  support  of 
British  troops,  127  ;  of  clergymen, 
146;  internal  and  external,  160; 
external,  160 ;  British  right  of, 
161,  162,  165. 

TEA,  duty  on,  161,  173,  174. 

TENNESSEE,  and  Kentucky  region, 
188  ;  settlement  in,  190. 

THEATERS,  141. 

THEOLOGY,  232. 

TlCONDEROGA,  95,   IO2,   103,   104. 

TIMBER,  139,  140. 

TOBACCO,  bounties  of.  18  ;  currency, 

146,  241  ;  "  Parsons'  Causev"  148, 

149. 
TOWN,  Government,  in  N.  E.,  8, 87  ; 

meeting,  162,  205,  236,  239. 
TOWNSHEND  ACTS,  160,  161,  172. 


TRADE,  organized  by  the  colonists, 

3- 

TRADE  LAWS,  antagonistic  to  colo 
nial  manufactures,  16 ;  encouraged 
the  smelting  of  iron  in  the  colo 
nies,  17  ;  encouraged  manufacture 
of  glass,  linen,  17,  18;  ship  stores, 
19;  forbade  manufacture  of 
woolen  cloths,  19;  not  rigorously 
enforced,  19;  attempt  to  enforce, 
chap,  on,  1 13  et  seq. ;  evasions  of, 
114;  oppression  of,  115;  revolt 
against,  116;  resistance  to,  167. 

TRADITIONS,  English,  108;  clung  to 
125. 

TRANSYLVANIA,  192,  193. 

TRENT,  William,  69. 

TRIAL,  by  jury,  157  ;  right  of,  in 
vaded,  1 66  ;  "  Intolerable  Acts," 
177,  180. 

TROOPS,  quartered  upon  the  people, 
127  ;  in  Boston,  161  ;  attacked  by 
mob,  162;  "Boston  Massacre," 
162;  withdrawal  demanded,  162, 
163;  removed  from  Boston,  165; 
Franklin  urged  their  payment, 
207. 


U 


UNION,  Franklin's  plan  of,  75;  of 
the  North  and  the  South,  130; 
cemented  by  the  "  Quebec  Act," 
179,  1 80;  through  oppression, 
1 80  ;  bond  of,  205. 


VACCINATION,  211. 

VEHICLES,  242. 

VENTILATION,  of  sleeping  rooms, 
212. 

VIRGINIA,  value  of*  a  shilling  in,  3  ; 
Cavaliers  in,  5  ;  county  court  in, 
8,  205  ;  early  immigration,  10  ;  at 
tracted  English  gentlemen,  10; 
houses  in,  12  ;  came  to  assistance 
of  the  Carolina  colony,  48  ;  com 
pany  formed  in,  to  settle  the  Ohio 


INDEX 


263 


country,  61  ;  Dinwiddie,  governor 
of,  64  ;  defended  her  men  in  the 
Ohio  valley,  67  ;  unable  to  con 
quer  Ohio  country,  76  ;  troops  of, 
under  Braddock,  76 ;  under  Wash 
ington,  80,  97  ;  Thomas  Jefferson 
in,  87,  151,  152,  206,  229,  231  ; 
schools  in,  88,  229  ;  Earl  of  Lou- 
doun,  93  ;  Ho  use  of  Burgesses,  98, 
99,  100,  146,  147;  on  slave  ques 
tion,  no;  property  qualification 
for  suffrage,  120,  219;  English 
church  established  in,  146;  re 
sisted  British  interference,  147; 
Patrick  Henry,  chapter  on,  145  et 
seq.,  202  ;  tocsin  of  Revolution  in, 
149  ;  asserted  right  to  govern  her 
self,  151  ;  General  Assembly  of 
the  Colony,  151  ;  stamp  tax  in, 
154;  protest  of,  161  ;  and  Mass, 
leaders,  171  ;  migration  into,  of 
"  Penn.  Dutch,"  185 ;  of  the 
"Scotch-Irish,"  186;  Kentucky 
a  part  of,  191  ;  defeated  Indians, 
at  Point  Pleasant,  192 ;  people  of, 
settled  in  the  West,  192  ;  army 
under  Clark  of,  192,  193  ;  legisla 
ture  of,  193;  County  of  Kentucky, 
193;  early  colonists  in,  196,  198; 
owned  by  corporate  proprietors, 
199 ;  under  royal  government,  199, 
200;  aristocracy  and  democracy  in, 
20 1  ;  Cavaliers  in,  202  ;  aristocratic 
county  courts,  205  ;  negro  slavery 
in,  219;  suffrage  in,  219;  aristoc 
racy  in,  201,  205,  220  ;  population 
in,  220  ;  "old  field  schools,"  229  ; 
College  of  William  and  Mary, 
230  \  funerals  in,  drinking  at,  241. 


W 


WALPOLE,  Horace,  165,  166. 

WARS,  colonists  fought  against  the 
Spanish,  French  and  Indians,  22, 
23 ;  King  William's  War,  24  ; 
between  English  and  French 
colonies,  25  ;  Indian,  49 ;  of  the 
colonists,  chapter  on,  52  et  seq. ; 


England  and  Spain,  52  et  seq.  ; 
France  and  England,  known  as 
King  George's  War,  54  et  seq. ; 
the  first  independent  colonial  war, 
chapter  on,  64  et  seq.;  Great 
French  and  Indian  War,  62,  71, 
107,  183  ;  against  French,  without 
permission  of  England,  73  et  seq.; 
trouble  in  management  of  colo 
nial,  92  et  seq. ;  expenses  of,  94  ; 
destruction  of  French  power, 
chapter  on,  92  et  seq.;  Second 
War  for  Independence,  195  ;  see 
French,  Indians,  Revolution, 
Spanish. 

WASHINGTON,  George,  the  repre 
sentative  of  Gov.  Dinwiddie,  64  ; 
return  trip,  66 ;  reward,  67  ;  saw 
the  key  to  the  Ohio  country,  68  ; 
sent  to  assist  Trent,  69  ;  moved 
against  Fort  Duquesne,  70 ;  de 
feated,  by  the  French,  72  ;  aid-de 
camp,  79  ;  accepted  no  pay  or  re 
ward  for  services  rendered,  79 ; 
saved  British  troops,  80  ;  covered 
Braddock's  retreat,  8 1  ;  and  Gen. 
Forbes,  97  ;  in  command  of  expe 
dition  against  Fort  Duquesne,  97  ; 
took  Duquesne,  98;  recognized  as 
an  able  commander  and  organ 
izer,  98  ;  elected  to  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  98  ;  at  Mt.  Vernon,  99 ; 
took  his  seat  in  the  Virginia  as 
sembly,  100;  his  first  and  only 
breakdown,  101 ;  spirit  of,  206. 

WATERFORD,  64. 

WATER  SUPPLY,  colonial,  216. 

WATAUGA,  first  independent  state, 
190. 

WEALTH,  colonial,  chapter  on,  134 
et  seq. ;  against  disturbance,  206  ; 
indications  of,  242. 

WELLS,  210. 

WEST,  opening  up  of,  105  ;  migra 
tion  to,  chap,  on,  183  et  seq. ; 
people  in,  187,  192  ;  settlements 
in,  before  the  Revolution,  189, 

!93- 
WEST  INDIES,  112. 


264 


INDEX 


WEST  VIRGINIA,  61. 

WHEAT,  221. 

WILLIAM  HENRY,  Fort,  94. 

WTILI,IAM  AND  MARY,  College  of, 

230. 

WILLIAMS,  Roger,  6. 
WOLFE,  Gen.  James,  104,  105. 


"  WRITS  OF  ASSISTANCE,"  1 15, 1 165 
123. 


YALE  COLLEGE,  230. 
YANKEES,  57,  112,  123,  167,  168. 


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IN  THE  DATS  OF  CHAUCER.  The  Story  of  His  Life  and 
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Wright  Ma  He.  1  2  mo.  Cloth.  Illustrated.  With  Bibliog 
raphies  and  Comments.  $1.00  net. 

"An  initial  volume  in  a  new  series  of  books  projected  along 
vital  lines  and  to  be  written  in  a  vital  spirit.  Fresh,  informal, 
taking.  Not  only  the  story  of  Chaucer's  life,  but  a  picture  of 
the  England  of  his  time."  —  The  Outlook. 

IN  THE  DATS  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  By  Tudor  Jenks. 
izmo.  Cloth.  Illustrated.  With  Bibliographies.  $i.oonet. 

"  Mr,  Jenks  has  succeeded  in  the  very  difficult  task  of  being 
at  once  scholarly  and  popular.  Should  be  in  every  school 
library.  '  *  —  Springfield  Republican. 

"Not  only  is  it  a  fine  sketch  of  the  man,  his  work  and  his 
associates,  but  it  gives  one  an  excellent  idea  of  the  social  condi 
tions  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived."  —  Chicago  Tribune. 

IN  THE  DATS  OF  MILTON.  By  Tudor  Jenks.  izmo. 
Cloth.  Illustrated.  With  Bibliographies.  $i.oonet. 

The  contrast  of  Puritan  and  Cavalier  life  is  vividly  pictured 
at  the  outset  of  Mr.  Jenks'  s  charming  life-story  of  Milton  and 
Milton's  England.  The  sketches  of  varying  life,  manners  and 
customs  and  the  spirit  of  the  times  show  at  once  the  fresh, 
broad  and  helpful  spirit  in  which  Milton's  life  and  times  are 
placed  before  us. 


IN    THE    DATS     OF    SCOTT.       By    Tudor    Jenks. 
Cloth.      Illustrated.      With  Bibliographies.      $1.00  net. 

Mr.  Jenks  sketches  the  life  in  old  Edinboro  in  the  time  of 
literary  giants,  and  outlines  the  surroundings,  influences  and  con 
ditions  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  periods  in  the  history  of 
English  literature.  While  the  charming  personality  of  Scott  in 
Edinboro  and  at  Abbotsford  breathes  through  his  pages,  his 
book  is  made  distinctive  by  its  vivid  reflection  of  the  life,  influ 
ences  and  atmosphere  of  a  time  of  peculiar  significance  to  every 
reader  and  student  of  literature. 

THE     A.    S.     BARNES     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK 


BOOKS     TO     HAVE     AND      KEEP 

LEGENDS  OF  THE  RHINE.  By  H.  A.  Guerber.  12 mo. 
Cloth.  40  full-page  illustrations.  356  pp.  $1.50  net. 
Fifth  edition. 

"  As  far  as  one  knows  there  is  in  English  no  book  which  so 
adequately  covers  the  subject." — New  York  Globe. 

"  Any  pilgrim  of  the  Rhine  who  goes  on  his  tour  without  it 
will  lose  much  pleasure  and  profit." — New  York  Observer. 


HOME  THOUGHTS.  First  and  Second  Series.  By  «C" 
(Mrs.  James  Farley  Cox}.  z  Vols.  Cloth.  Each,  $1.20 
net.  The  set  in  half-calf,  $6.00  net. 

"A  certain  gracious  domestic  philosophy  characterises  « Home 
Thoughts.'  " — New  York  Evening  Post. 

"A  book  which  every  mother,  wife  and  daughter  in  the  land 
should  read." — The  Lamp. 

"  No  wiser  book,  nor  one  more  sorely  needed,  has  appeared 
for  a  long  time." — Hamilton  W.  Mabie. 

AN  AMERICAN  CRUISER  IN  THE  EAST.  A  Voyage  to 
the  Aleutian  Islands,  Korea,  Japan,  China,  and  the  Philippines. 
By  Rear-Admiral  John  D.  Ford.  izmo.  200  Illustrations. 
Cloth.  Third  edition.  $1.50  net. 

"A  veritable  search-light  thrown  upon  the  lands  and  the  peo 
ple  affected  by  the  late  American  war  with  Spain." 

— Literary  World. 

AMERICA  IN  THE  EAST.  By  William  Elliot  Grijfis,  LL.D. 
Illustrated.  izmo.  Cloth.  $1.50. 

"  It  is  almost  a  duty  for  every  American  to  read  this  book." 

— Philadelphia  North  American. 

"  The  book  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  one  interested 
in  our  duty  in  the  Far  East." — The  Outlook. 


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